Codex Astra Militarum is the latest Codex release for Warhammer 40k 10th Edition, and in the Death Korps Army Set, up for pre order today, you get the first chance to get your hands on the book! The Death Korps of Krieg are among the most loyal guardsmen in the Imperium, and their Cult of Sacrifice drives them to die in service to The Emperor. But they don’t simply throw away their lives in mindless suicide, they will fight until the last, only ceding ground at the very last, making enemies of the Imperium pay the price for every inch of trench taken.

In this full unboxing and review we’ll be checking out the new Death Korps army set, painting up all the new models and comparing them to the old resin ones, and diving into the new Codex to see what is new, what;s changed and what armies you can put together this edition.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a copy of Codex Astra Militarum and the Death Korps box, if you would like to support the site then why not order yours through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing of the new Death Korps Army Set, which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So let’s jump right in with what’s in the Death Korps Army Set!

Death Korps of Krieg Army Set Unboxing

So before we dive into Codex Astra Militarum itself, let’s first take a look at the awesome Death Korps of Krieg Army Set (Retailing at £145). I’ve been a fan of the Death Korps for a long time, with me having an existing resin army from back when the Siege of Vraks books got released back in the mists of time. The Death Korps tended to be a more niche army due to them being only available from Forge World and in resin which made them expensive and fragile.

A couple of years ago, Games Workshop released the first plastic Krieg kit in the Octarius Kill Team set, and while a little taller and chunkier than the old resin models, they still look great next to them. Further Krieg releases had been rumoured for years, but today the Death Korps of Krieg box is finally up for pre order!

You get quite a bit in the box for your £145, starting off with an absolutly gorgeous limited edition Codex Astra Miliatrum with some classic Death Korps art on it. The standard Codex is £37 retail, so that’s a big chunk of the cost already. This is also joined by a full set of profile cards covering not just the contents of the box, but also the entire Astra Miliatrum range. I’m a big fan of these reference cards, especially in an army like the Astra Militarum that is going to have a lot of units in play. If you call the cards and Codex a combined £45, that still leaves £100 of the box left – so what plastics do we get?

You get 5 boxes worth of stuff here – 2 boxes of Death Riders, Marshall Dreir, a unit of 5 Engineers and an Artillery team – If we look at prices of comparable kits (Rough Riders £40 for 5, Lord Solar £40 , Field Ordnance £34 and Scions £28) this works out as around £180 of models despite the low model count (With most of the box value being in those 2 boxes of Death Riders).

Having spent way more than the price of this box on 5 resin Death Riders I feel this is a good deal, though from an army point of view there’s about 300-400 points here, so you will need to add more units.

The kits are outstanding though – I’ve build both resin Death Riders and Engineers, and the detail is comparable – below I’ve got some side my side shots, and while the new models are a little larger they are just as nice!

My only criticism of the Death Riders is that non of the riders have their spears in the holster standing upright. This does make them more dynamic than the old resin ones, but does make them look a little jarring if you use them next to each other. I’ll most likely be running the resin and plastic ones as seperate units to make them look a little more natural.

The Engineers have a few new bits – firstly they can take a flamer, which is a nice addition. Another new bit on the sprue is the explosive remote – this is just a token that is removed during the game, but it fits their look perfectly!

My favourite kit out of the set has to be the Artillery team – sitting on 120mm base, this is almost a mini diorama, with the kit coming with piles of sandbags to protect the emplacement. It’s really easy to build this so that you can swap between all the combinations of weapons too – I’ll most likely be keeping it as the big siege gun, but the other options can be just swapped out and clipped in as long as you dont glue the main gun to the assembly.

I never picked up the old Earthshaker emplacement, but I feel this sits a little shorter than that based on a Basilisk turret – However if you have existing ones in your collection I’m sure you could easily proxy them as this one.

The final kit in the box is the Lord Marshall Dreir, and he looks suitably epic, with a nice sculpted base with some molded barbed wire sections (something he shares with the Death Riders) – It’s just a shame there isn’t a generic “Death Korps Commander on Horse” profile to make use of multiples of the kit!

To fully lean into the WW1 trench fighters theme, I gave all the units trench bases – this was done using Polyfiller to build up effect of the base, then scattered sand and stones in to add some texture and detail. I then used model Barbed wire to add some hazards and get that gritty trench feel. Once this was dry (It’ll take a while) I then primed in black and stated to build up the colours. Now I painted my Krieg a long time ago, and I used Charadon Granite as the main colour. When I added the plastic kriegers to my army I used IV-02 from Instar as that’s a very close match (though sadly i believe this colour is long gone too!) If you have any decent alternatives please mention them in the comments! While the Charadon (or alternative) is still wet, I then randomly add patches of Agrax Gloss (quite heavily) to represent wet fresh mud. On the larger pieces I also pour some pools of gloss varnish to add some realism to the wetness of it all.

it takes a little time getting them just right, but I’m happy with how they turned out, and will be trying to replicate the scheme going forwards.

So that’s all the new models – but what about Codex Astra Militarum? Let’s check it out in our full review!

Codex Astra Militarum Review

So it’s time to now jump into the Codex Astra Militarum itself, and again I just want to say how very gorgeus the limited edition cover is. I’m sure there will be fellow nerds like me that loved the Vraks books and are happy to see some classic artwork like this again.

Death Korps are on the cover of both this and the standard Codex, and I think it’s same to say Krieg has got a lot of the love this time. From a lore point of view we get background for all of the main regiments, covering Cadia, Catachan, Valhalla, Mordian, Tallarn and Armageddon (showing that despite the generic infantry profile going, the other regiments are still represented from a lore pov). While most of these get a page or two or lore, the Death Korps of Krieg get a mighty 10 pages of coverage. Now this is of course not to the detail as the Vraks books, but this is still the most background we’ve had in a modern Codex for the Death Korps, and shows how popular they have come from a niche resin army to a full fledged core part of the new plastic range.

As ever we get a full army showcase, but as expected it’s only the current plastic regiments that are represented (With the exception of Catachan – A sign that we might be getting new plastics for them at some point perhaps?) Most of the older regiments are long discontinued, so this is no surprise. If you do have some of these older kits they are easily usable as any of the three core regiment options however – more on this shortly.

Combat Patrol

A new Combat patrol is shown off in the book, and I’ll be honest – It’s a bit of an odd one. I had expected it to be the contents of the Krieg box, maybe tweaked to only include 5 Death Riders – but it has a Cadian Command Squad, a unit of Kasrkin, and 2 units of 5 Rough Riders. Value wise this is around £150 of kits, but it seems like an odd mix to me without a battleline unit and you’re probably not going to want 20 Rough Riders to double up. That said, these sorts of boxes are really aimed at new players rather than existing collectors, and so this box gives you a nice assortment of bits to build an army around. It’s just a shame it doesnt have any of the new kits, which is something we’ve seen in other recent Combat Patrol boxes.

As ever, the book does contain a full painting guide for getting your Combat Patrol battle ready, which is always a nice touch for newcomers.

Codex Astra Militarum – The Rules

So onto the rules, and while there are a lot of changes in this book, the core army mechanic remains the same. Voice of Command allows your Officer units to issue orders to your units. The Officer profile will show what types of units they can grant orders to, and how many they can issue a turn. These all remain the same:

Move! Move! Move! increasing movement by 3″

Fix Bayonets! Increasing WS by 1

Take Aim! Increasing BS by 1

First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire! Increasing the attacks of Rapid Fire weapons by 1

Take Cover! Increasing saves by 1

Duty and Honour! Increasing Leadership and OC by 1

These are now much easier to eyeball with little graphics next to each order depicting the stat that is increased by the Order.

There’s now 5 different Detachments in Codex Astra Militarum, with 4 new ones joining Combined Arms.

Combined Arms stays the same, with your units gaining lethal hits depending on what you are shooting at – so regiments get it against non vehicle/monsters and Squadrons get it against vehicles/monsters – leaning into what the unit should be focusing on.

Enhancements have changed a little with Kurov’s Aquila getting replaced with Reactive Command, which allows the officer to issue a free command to each unit that is set up within 9″

There’s some tweaks in the Stratagems too – Armoured Might has been replaced with Stalwart protector, which now gives the benefit of cover rather than subtracting 1 from damage.

All of the other detachments are really fun though, and lean into a specific way of using an Astra Militarum army.

Siege Regiment is all about unrelenting bombardments of arillary and daring “over the top” charges out of cover. This is clearly very Death Korps focused, and the Detachment Rule represents your big guns that are off board supporting your units and supressing enemy ones. At the start of each Battle Round you pick a type of shell that your support guns are firing, and these each have different effects. Creeping Barrage for example slows enemy units and makes it harder for them to charge, Incendiary Shells can be fired to remove cover and Smoke Shells can be used to give your units Stealth. In a 2000 point game you can target 3 units with your shells giving you lots of options here.

Out of the Enhancements my favourite is Stalwart’s Honours which gives the officer’s unit the benefit of Take Cover! in addition to any other orders they get. This combines nicely with “Over the Top”, which is a stratagem that allows Move! Move! Move! to be issued on any number of friendly units, freeing up your other officers to make your artillery shoot better. There’s some other really nice strats here such as Minefield which does mortal wounds on a unit that charges your units, or Callous Sacrefice that allows your units to shoot in combat, but for every model you kill there’s a chance one of your own models is destroyed. Combined with Death Korps medics bringing models back each turn this is a brilliant way of gunking up enemy units and doing a surprising amount of damage to them.

Mechanised Assault is the next detachment, and this is based all around units in vehicles. The main mechanic gives any unit that disembarks from a transport +1 to wound when it shoots, which is brilliant! Do this across an army and you have some small punchy units that can dish out a lot of hurt.

This is boosted by enhancements that allow you to advance out of a transport but count as just moving, and one that gives your officer’s transport “sticky” objectives.

There’s some really nice abilities in the Strats for this – such as being able to clamber into a vehicle if a unit gets charged, or to pile into a transport at the end of the enemy players turn. There’s also one that allows a unit that has disembarked to immediately make a move, making this quite a nippy Detachment for objective stealing.

Hammer of the Emperor is for fans of tanks, with all of your Squadrons always advancing 6″ and have the ability to move through engagement range when they do – allowing your tanks to get behind enemy lines!

Enhancements are all about boosting your tanks – gaining 3 OC, or another giving 6+ FNP. Calm under fire is a decent one that allows you to issue the same order twice a turn.

Likewise, the Strats focus on your vehicles, with ways of allowing your tanks to shoot after advancing, shoot after falling back and reduce damage of incoming fire by 1.

The final detachment in Codex Astra Militarum is Recon Element. This is your Jungle Fighter favouring detachment, and their core ability is that all walkers and regiments always have the benefit of cover, and their save increases by an additional 1 if they are in cover.

There’s some nice thematic Enhancements here such as Tripwires making enemy units within 9″ have a chance of reducing their hit values by 1.

There’s some cool strats too – I really like Courageous Diversion – this gives a unit a 6+ feel no pain and makes enemy models -1 to hit if they are the closest unit to them. Scramblefield is also a nice way of stopping enemy reinforcements being set up within 12″

I really like all these detachments, and love how they capture the essence of different types of army. I’m looking forward to trying some varied forces with them.

Codex Astra Militarum – Datasheets

So on to the Data sheets in the new Codex Astra Militarum. Now we’re only going to focus on Datasheets that have changed or been added here, as there’s a lot of profiles in this book! If you do want to see each and every profile you can check out our full video where we go through the whole book!

So first things first, what’s been removed?

Well first on the chopping block are a lot of old metal models. Munitorum Servitors are gone, as are Sergeant Harker, Iron Hand Stracken and Regimental Attaches. it’s a shame to see the Artillery Commander go, especially with all the artillery in the book, but the models are really old. Likewise, it’s a massive shame that the Catachans lose two of their classic models (I do hope we get them back at some point in the future) though thankfully they do keep Marbo

Generic Command, Infantry and Heavy Weapon squads have also all been removed, just leaving Catachan, Cadian and Krieg versions of each. They all have different roles, and to be fair a lot of the older regiments can be represented just as well by using one of these new profiles.

There’s a lot of nice new stuff in the book though!

Krieg Command Squads are really nice, they can issue orders while Battleshocked. They also give the unit a 6+ feel no pain, increase the OC of models by 1 and can issue orders up to 24″ away, which is great for reaching back to your artillery or doing a mass Move! Move! Move! when combined with the Over the Top strat.

Lord Marshall Dreir is the new character for the Death Korps, and he’s pretty good! He can issue 3 orders a turn, but only to Regiments – so no ordering tanks. He’s also pretty tough to kill with a 4+ inv save and the ability to come back to life on a 2+. He’s best placed in a big squad of Death Riders as he gives them devastating wounds on the charge, which is really nice.

Catachan Command Squads have returned as their own unit, and they give attached units Assualt on all their weapons and the ability to return D3 dead models a turn. They seem a really nice way of making your Catachan squad even punchier.

Cadian Command Squads no longer grant Feel no Pain, and instead return D3 dead models a turn. They also no longer ignore modifiers, but instead give the unit cover if they are near an objective.

Tank Commanders have been split into two profiles with both Leman Russ and Rogal Dorn Tank Commanders having profiles. While the Leman Russ retains it’s old rules, the Rogal Dorn has the ability to rerollone hit, one wound and one damage roll each time it shoots, making this the absolute best way to run a Dorn.

Krieg Combat Engineers are another new addition to the book, and they act as a fast moving grenaidier unit (getting the Grenade strat for free each turn) with a scout move at the start of the game – they also have a remote mine that can be fired once per game to do D6 mortal wounds, or D3 +3 to a vehicle or fortification. My gut feeling is small squads that can creep forward under cover of smoke shells and snipe nearly dead units and vehicles with grenades and remote mines.

Tempestus Aquillions are added to the book – they can deep strike outside of 3 inches of enemy units, and when they come down they can shoot with their turret – this turret stays in place until they move or charge. Sadly it just gets removed after that and doesnt follow them around the battlefield.

Heavy Weapon teams have been split into three flavours – Cadian ones fire overwatch on a 5+ which increases to 4+ if they are near a platoon – this is crazy good covering fire , especialy if you give them lascannons! the catachan ones get to reroll hits and wounds of 1 against monsters and vehicles, while the Krieg ones get to shoot on a 3+ after being destroyed. The Krieg Heavy Flamer in particular here is pretty tasty with S5 and Damage 2.

The new Artillery team is essentially a scaled up version of the Ordnance battery. There’s lots of ways you can build this, but for me the best is the Siege cannon with S12 Ap-2 and Damage 3 for taking out Elite units and armour alike.

Another new addition to Codex Astra Militarum is the Death Riders. These don’t quite hit as hard as Rough Riders as they don’t have the hunting lances – they do however get Devastating wounds from Dreir (Which seems to be the best way to field them). Their main role is a screening line, as they can move 6″ when enemy units get within 9″ of them.

Ratlings have an updated profile to represent their new kit, now getting a S9 Ap 3 D6 damage Tankstopper Rifle, and the unit gets the ability once per game to get lethal hits on their guns. they also get the grenade keyword, though chances are you’re never going to have them close enough to use it

There’s also some tweaks across the other profiles in the book – One example of this is the Scout Sentinal which while still allowing rerolls of 1, no longer lets you ignore the modifier for indirect. Death korps squads have also been tweaked a little – you can now take two medics to return D3+1 models per turn.

Lord Solar can now join Death Riders and Engineers if he wants to, though I suspect best place for him will still be in a massive blob of Death Korps with medics and command to keep him in the fight even longer.

Catachans get a nice boost in that when they charge they get +1 to wound. They can still take 4 plamers in a squad of 20, and with the command squad giving their lasguns Assault, this makes them a nice fast unit that can sometimes get some decent charges off.

The book also has a nice breakdown of all the weapons on various models, with images to help differentiate one weapon from another – This is a nice touch, especially for new players who may not yet know which gun is which.

Crusade

Crusade is one of the most fun ways to play Warhammer 40,000 and Codex Astra Militarum is no different with it’s Crusade content. In this one, your army gets sent out on Tours of Duty and have to manage logistics points and juggle the resources they have access to. Essentially this is a balancing act of making sure your various logistics catagories do not fall into deficiency, as this gives your units a negative effect. So for example, a Material deficiency reduces the movement of all your vehicles by 2″ as your are running out of fuel, or a Morale deficiency means you cannot use insane bravery. On the other hand, if you manage to successfully stockpile your resources so that you have a surplus, your units get a positive effect – so in the same examples a surplus Materials means your units can reroll a hit as they have extra ammo, or a surplus in Morale increases your leadership by 1.

Your units will gain commendations are they are on Tours of Duty, and you can use this to give your units awards that give them additional benefits – so for example you might give your Ratling the Departmento Salvage Award, which allows them to salvage scrap at the end of the game to gain requisition points, or maybe give your Death Riders the Auxilia Golden Star, allowing them to use heroic intervention for free. I really like these, and can see myself chronicling the various medals and ribbons that my units are earning as their Crusade continues.

Summary

So what do I think of the Death Korps of Krieg Army Set and 10th edition Codex Astra Militarum? I’ve been playing Death Korps for years now, so they really had me at plastic Death Riders with this box. Yes, the scupts are a little bigger than the old resin ones, but they are just as detailed and look absolutely fantastic on the battlefield. While the Death Riders dont mix too well alongside the old ones, the Engineers fit alongside the old ones perfectly, and the Artillery finally gives me the ability to do the siege army of my dreams without needing multiple £100 resin artillery platforms.

While I know some are disappointed by the model count, from a value point of view you’re still getting a great deal here and saving lots over retail, especially if you are planning on using all the models in the box. I’d always rather have a box where I’d want to use every single model over one with lots of models but many I wouldnt use in my armies.

Yes, lots of profiles have changed in the book and there’s stuff that’s been removed – but I do think these are changes for the better, and the new options give players lots of new ways of playing. I particularity love the new Detachments as I feel this will lead to lots of new army styles on the tabletop.

I’m looking forward to adding some new bits to my Death Korps and seeing them grow through their Crusade.

The Death Korps of Krieg Army Set is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 25th January.

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with a free copy for review purposes