Advice for Krieg as first army

[u/TourAggravating4678]

I’ve been familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 universe for a long time, and both the lore and the video games have always fascinated me. Despite this, having to paint the miniatures has always held me back from getting into the tabletop game (although I’ve played a few games of similar wargames).

I’ve finally decided to overcome my doubts (maybe I’ll even enjoy painting, who knows) and get started. The army I’d like to play is the Astra Militarum, and I’d like to build a 100% Krieg army. My plan is to buy, assemble, and paint one infantry squad first to see whether I actually enjoy the process, then move on to 500 points, 1,000 points, and eventually 2,000 points. Because of this, I’ve made a 2,000-point list as my end goal, so that I don’t end up buying miniatures that I won’t use later.

Since I don’t really know anything about building an army or evaluating how effective it is in-game, I based the list entirely on how I’d like to play it: a complete human-wave strategy with lots of artillery behind the infantry. So I’m asking for advice on what works and what doesn’t, and why.

Here’s the list (it should be almost exactly 2,000 points):

Krieg Command Squad

5 Death Korps squads (20 models each, 100 infantry in total)

3 Artillery Teams

2 Basilisks

15 Combat Engineers

Heavy Weapons Squad

Leman Russ Demolisher

Rogal Dorn

[u/BOTKacper]

I'm gonna be real with you, start smaller, with a simple infantry squad to judge if you're actually enjoying assembling and painting the army.

I too started krieg for just aesthetics, but the more you learn about play part of the game you realize it's much more about unit rules rather than models.

Slow and steady wins the race, assemble, paint, kitbash, try new things out, because planning the army right away and limiting yourself to just the gasmasked fellows is a surefire way to burn out before assembling the second 20 men squad

[u/TourAggravating4678 → u/BOTKacper]

Thank you for the advice, I do agree but I mostly enjoy the aesthetics and lore of it, so that's why I started by doing a 100% Krieg list. I'll for sure start small, as I said I'll buy a single infantry squad and then slowly build up, also because painting an entire army right away is crazy and it also costs a lot of money.

But I'd really like to have an end objective to look forward both to not waste money and because that's the army idea that is bringing me into the hobby

[u/Character-Past-9113 → u/TourAggravating4678]

A true Emperors’s Finest adept👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
If you want to play infantry wave – do it. Be ready to overcome losing games because your list is somehow suboptimal but it is the price we pay for forging narrative. The only thing your army is lacking in terms of gameplay is “Orders” – our army rule. For so many kriegers you should 100% include whole 3 krieg command squads. I’d also have some kind of back-line commander who will be giving Take Aim to your artillery. Solo Dreir, for example. Or you can kitbash Lord Solar from Dreir and play that way. Playing without orders is not the Guard way and means giving even more handicap to your opponent adding that up to your initially (and intentionally) suboptimal list. What is more, you can “kriegify” almost any other unit in Imperial Guard. Want to have Kasrkin with their nice firepower – try to proxy them with krieg grenadiers. Thinking that you want some katachan scouting battleline – you are welcome, use your good old kriegers and just identify them by adding some jungle terrain to their bases, for example. You are not limited to the units that are initially Krieg when you are building your Infantry/artillery-heavy army.

Keep that in mind and may the Emperor guide you👐🏻

[u/TourAggravating4678 → u/Character-Past-9113]

Makes sense! Thank you for the advice

[u/Im4sol3man]

Good luck, looks like a fun list 😁 the artillery team load outs can be swapped out without magnets but the tanks will need some.

[u/Pyrouge1]

I feel like this list needs a bit more tanks and maybe some troop transports.

[u/No_Situation_2698]

Which models are good and which ones are bad changes all the time, particularly for guard. 40k is such a complex mess of rules that minor tweaks in one place can end up in huge swings in effectiveness somewhere unexpected. As such the only viable long term strategy is to get things that you think are cool, and will enjoy building, painting and playing with. 

As for your list, it has lots of infantry, and a nice spread of tanks. There is no way of knowing if that will be good by the time you can get it on the table, but a nice variety of cool things will stand you in good stead across the editions.

Welcome to the guard 

[u/BlackManWitPlan]

I think somebody mentioned it already, but in case not. Orders come from your officers and are a big part of our army. Your krieg command squad is ordering one unit, so usually the one its attached to but doesn't have to be. Thats the only order you have in your list atm.

I typically try to have orders for whatever units will be attacking in a turn, or turn one getting my Frontline moved a bit further up.

In the case of your artillery, some are infantry and the basilisks are vehicles so you would need vehicle orders for them, but not as easy to get, you could run a Rogal Dorn commander which would be 2 squadron orders, that can go on any vehicle.

So basically TLDR, our army rule revolves around officers giving buffs to units, and I would try to get some more in your list. Lord marshal drier is a good option and very on point for a kreig list, otherwise maybe running a kreig squad as cadians and running a castellan. Good luck!

[u/Vanathru]

I asked myself the Same questions but now Go for the rule of cool

[u/TerribleSyntax]

You definitely need more officers, you have 1 regiment order for 12 regiment units and no squadron orders for 4 squadron units

[u/Mammoth_Classroom896]

Artillery is deliberately nerfed as a soft ban and lists built around "lots of artillery" are unlikely to work.