Death Korps of Krieg

Krieg the World

Krieg died in nuclear fire, but its people refused to burn with it. In M34, the planet's Autocrats declared independence from the Imperium. Colonel Jurten of the 83rd Krieg Regiment answered this treason by unleashing a global atomic bombardment. He destroyed his own world rather than let it fall.

For five hundred years, a civil war raged in the irradiated ruins. The loyalists burrowed into the toxic earth, raising generations in subterranean bunkers. Children were born into gas masks, breathing filtered air, knowing only that they owed a debt to the Emperor that could never truly be repaid.

The Atonement

When Krieg finally recontacted the Imperium, they offered the only tithe a dead world could produce: soldiers. Millions of them. The Death Korps was born from this guilt. Every Krieger believes they inherit the sin of the Autocrats' rebellion.

They do not fear death; they actively seek it. To die in service to the Emperor is the only acceptable end. A Krieger has no name, only a serial number. Individuality is a luxury of a world that breathes clean air. They are a faceless tide of trench coats and bayonets.

Doctrine of Sacrifice

Where other regiments maneuver or fall back, Krieg digs in. They are the absolute masters of siege and attrition warfare. They will happily march across an open, machine-gun-swept plain if the mathematics of war dictate that their corpses will fill the trenches for the second wave to step over.

No Krieger will ever accept an order to retreat. Commissars attached to Death Korps regiments often find their typical role reversed; instead of shooting cowards to maintain morale, they must forcibly restrain Krieg commanders from needlessly sacrificing their men in suicidal charges.

The Vraks Siege

The defining moment of the modern Death Korps was the Siege of Vraks. An armory world taken by apostate forces required taking back. The Administratum estimated the siege would take twelve years. The 12th Krieg Corps dug their trenches, unrolled their barbed wire, and settled in.

Millions died in the mud. Artillery barrages turned the landscape into a lunar crater field. The Kriegers did not break. They bled the apostates dry, inch by bloody inch, proving that absolute grim resolve could crush even the fervor of Chaos.

Why Krieg Does Not Stop

The Imperium uses the Death Korps for its most horrific war zones—radioactive wastelands, toxic death worlds, meat-grinder sieges. They are sent where ordinary men would break.

The Krieger looks out across the poisoned mud, checks his lasgun, and fixes his bayonet. He does not hope for a better tomorrow. He only hopes that his death will buy the Imperium one more second of survival. The debt must be paid.

In life, war. In death, peace. In life, shame. In death, atonement.

— Litany of Sacrifice