Per Usual: Images and links are from Lexicanum 

“In life, war. In death, peace.”

“In life, shame. In death, atonement.” – Final Litany of The Death Corp or Kreig before battle.

In the Warhammer 40k universe of madness and weirdness, the Death Korps of Krieg stands out for their zealotry, their lack of any sense of self preservation, and the mystery of existence.  No one, not the Inquisition, the Ecclesiarchy, or the Space Marines are as self sacrificing as the Death Korps.   They are used for long sieges or any conflict where there is till some value in taking the planet instead of using Exterminatus .  The Death Korps of Krieg are the only army allowed to fight using combined arms, they have their own artillery, siege weapons, both mechanical and biological cavalry, and various ground troop regiments; however, they do not have any aerial units as that is the province of the Imperial Navy and you do not want to cross the Imperial Navy.  Other non-Krieg regiments do not like being deployed alongside Krieg troops, due to the complete lack of self preservation, their fatalistic acceptance of their own death, and their willingness to take horrific wounds to take out a single enemy, all causing a drop in the morale of the regiment fighting alongside any Krieg regiment.  Plus the continuous praying, training, and lack of being able to differentiate one trooper from another is very disturbing to any allied troops.  The troops are incredibly fanatical in their worship of the Emperor, so much so, it even weirds out the members of the Ecclesiarchy.  Only the Space Marines seem to not be bothered by being deployed with troops from Krieg, whom they seem to actually respect.  They even have to have their own Kommisars, as only they can hold them back from immediatley charging into a fight.

What led to Krieg’s current situation?   Greed and arrogance.

At one point the world of Krieg was a paradise, both an agricultural and production world, with the hive cities producing much to contribute to the Imperium.  Unfortunately over time, the autocrats who ruled the planet became paranoid that the Imperium (who kept demanding more and more) were going to come and remove them from the luxurious and privileged positions they were accustomed to having.  The Autocrats began their rebellion by decreasing the amount of their tithe to the Empire, which started causing some concern within the ranks of the Imperium, attracting attention both from the Inquisition and the Officio Munitorium.  So the Imperium sent a well known and fanatical Krieg soldier, Col. Jurten to see what was happening.  The Autocrats allowed Jurten and his regiment to land (mistake #1) at a hive city away from the hive city where the planetary government resided (mistake #2).  Jurten demanded answers, and he got them in a planet wide announcement that Krieg had left the Imperium.  Jurten, with his regiment, immediately seized control of the hive at which he had landed and declared anyone who sided with the government were traitors.  The Autarch, had incorrectly assumed that the populace was going to go along with the move and most did, actually since nothing really changed in their daily lives, the average citizen didn’t really care; however, the government had “allowed” the Ecclesiarchy to build churches (mistake #3) and preach the Imperial creed unabated (mistake #4), so the intermittent sabotage of factories and attempted assassinations started to occur, which really did not help the ruling governments paranoia, with anyone thought to be a Loyalist being immediately executed.  As we all know, that rarely works as intended.  Well, all of these circumstances added up to a full blown civil war with one side being the Loyalists of the Empire and the other being the Krieg ruling government.

The Loyalists were outnumbered and outgunned, but were better trained (Jurten’s original regiment being the backbone of their forces) and had a Techpriest Magos (Kriel), who was a part of Jurten’s retinue found a way to make las rifles and pistols more powerful at the cost of their energy consumption, which really helped the Loyalist hold off the traitorous forces.  Jurten had requested help from the Empire, but help was too far away to help end this quickly or actually to be of much use.  The war devolved into trench fighting very reminiscent of WWI, with heavy bombardments by artillery followed by a rush of troops from their trenches.  The stalemate lasted for decades, until Kriel informed Jurten that there were stockpiles missiles equipped with atomic warheads left from the Dark Age of Technology.  They had never been disassembled due to the fact that no one understood how they were built and were afraid that they might set them off in the act of disassembly.  Eventually Jurten decided to use them since he could see no other way to defeat the enemies of the Empire, but it was the way he used them that sealed the fate of Krieg.  Worried that the missiles were too slow and could be intercepted, he launched all of them into the atmosphere and with a spread to cover the entire planet and detonated all of them.  The traitors, who had no idea of what Jurten was doing, took no actions nor gave any warnings, such as telling the troops in the trenches to seek better shelter, the hive cities to close off their atmospheric intake vents or to close off the external water supply.  The resulting detonations completely devastated the planet.  Anyone caught outside without radiation or gas protection were dead, either immediately or eventually from radiation poisoning or the atomic fire storms that covered the planet.  This of course let to nuclear winter, killing off what little still lived on the surface.  The air, the land, and the seas were extremely contaminated with radiation.  Krieg was now a death world for which the Empire had no use.  So all reinforcements and supplies on their way to Krieg were recalled and the Empire wrote the planet off.

The Loyalists did not have the upper hand after the use of atomics, actually if just made the playing field even, which indicates just how much of a disadvantage the Loyalists were at before the “Purging” which is what the nuclear attack became to be known as.  Kriel had already designed and had manufactured the equipment for the Loyalist troops, the reinforced breathing mask, the heavy radiation resistant overcoat, and other equipment to keep the troops and their mounts alive.  So the loyalist troops were able to fight on the surface, but due to the environmental devastation, a lot of the fighting developed into the creation of tunnels to try and reach their foes without crossing the surface.  This civil war raged for 500 years of trench and tunnel warfare until the eventual victory by the Loyalists.

Not much of a victory, but the planet of Krieg was now unified and they reached out to the Empire to once again fulfill their obligations of providing troops and weapons.  To say the Munitorium was surprised was quite an understatement, they inquired if Krieg could even supply a regiment, and were even more shocked when they were told they could supply 20 fully outfitted regiments of troops, cavalry, artillery, and tanks.  Oh, and by the way we can also supply 50 million fully trained and supplied troops per year.  Which of course led to some questioning by the Inquisition, the Mechanicus, and the Munitorium.  The Inquisition had the Krieg troops remove their masks to make sure they were not mutants or abhumans.  Nothing has ever been said of what they saw, but the troops are allowed to continue to serve, so the Inquisition must have been satisfied.  The Mechanicus learned that the troops and probably the entire population are produced by the “Vitae Womb” (which they frown on heavily due) which artificially produces humans (they do have to come from a heavily genetically altered fertilized egg), but they can use the same fertilized egg over and over, basically creating a clone army.  And Luetin (see below) and I believe all the troops are clones of Col. Jurten, heavily indoctrinated and fanatically loyal to the empire.

This has gotten longer than I wanted to do for an intro, so I will stop here.  Next time, more about the troops, their weapons, and their tactics

For a much better intro and telling of Krieg’s history:

Luetin09 as usual, in incredible depth, but a bit dry:

And of course Baldemort: