The Kasrkin have the Greandiers and Vanguard building blocks for their regiment, but don't gain all the equipment associated with those traits. This is most likely balanced by the stunning amount of rad gear that the Kasrkin get for their standard kit, but it's strange when you consider that some of the other regiments presented in Hammer specifically list parts where the regiment's traits differs from the norm (Armageddon Steel Legion, Attilan Rough Riders, etc).

More distressing is the gear listed that lacks a write-up in any of the books. It's pretty easy to imagine what environmentally-sealed carapace does, but I was surprised to not find any statistics for it [how long does the power last? the air? Does it grant a bonus to gas attacks or is the wearer immune? Does it provide the same protection as light carapace (I think this is most likely since this is what typical Grenadiers receive)? Storm Trooper carapace? Piecemeal carapace?]. Similarly, I can't find any equipment listing for the dozer blade and the camo-netting attached to their Chimeras. Their squads get the cool sounding siege auspex, but there is no explanation of how this differs from a regular auspex in any Only War book, though I think it may exist in Deathwatch. The backpack power generator is probably the same piece of equipment as the backpack power pack listed on page 192 of the core book, but there is a possibility that it is simply the backpack power source that comes with all hot-shot lasguns (shown on page 176), since the Kasrkin all receive that weapon.

An anointed toolkit sounds so much more interesting than just a simple toolkit, but is simply an added bit of flavor or does it make the machine you are working on less likely to fail? Or add a bonus to fear tests? And listed next to their prodigious amount of krak and frag grenades are simply "grenades", with no indication of what type; but I am being picky, that is probably a typo.

Yeah, I think we're all waiting for the errata with bated breath. For what it's worth, I don't think every Kasrkin gets the XL backpack power pack: the 25kg weight would overload the majority of Guardsmen. It seems far more likely that they meant the 10kg standard hotshot power pack. At least they included ammo this time!

The Kasrkin standard regimental kit really does not match up with the gear gained from the regiment type. Grenadiers should have 1 auxiliary grenade launcher weapon upgrade per player character, 1 addition krak and frag grenade per player character, 1 suit of light carapace armour per player, 1 deadspace earpiece per player and 2 grenade launchers per squad.

In the standard regimental kit they dont list the auxiliary grenade lanucher at all. They get 3 krak and frag grenades each, with only 1 from the regiment thats 2 each left to buy with points thats going to eat up most of the 30 points. They get a environmentaly sealed suit of carapace armour not a suit of light charapace armour. They don't give them the deadpace earpiece or 2 grenade launchers per squad.

I don't think you can give them the gear they have listed and only spend the standard 30 points per regiment.

I have also seen a few other pieces of gear listed in this book that I can't find the rules for anywhere, I know for example they made the Scintillan Fusiliers Armoured Regiment and for the standard squad issued Leman Russ it comes with a track guard. Just no rules on how these work in combat if you take any hits or critial damage to the movment system of the tank.

Ryath said:

The Regiment Creation rules are specifically called out as only being guidelines in the Core Rulebook. It is intended that they be used as much or as little as the GM desires to model the regiment that the players wish to form. Not every canon regiment needs to follow them precisely, nor - with GM's permission - does every group-created regiment.

Before I published that first post, I did some arithmetic. I didn't think anyone would be interested, but since the topic of their variant geat has continued, I'll post it here. I was interested in how the Kasrkin's gear stacked up if it were compared to a hypothetical regiment that made of all the same regiment choices and I wanted to know how much their kit cost so I could have an idea of how much liberty the design took with their gear (which, as Ryath pointed out, is perfectly fine to do, I was just curious). So using the Additional Standard Kit Items table of page 69 of the core, I costed out each piece of gear the Kasrkin received over and above what was listed in Grenadiers and Vanguard, and did the same with each piece of gear that was missing from Grenadiers and Vanguard. I totalled the former separately from the latter. I expected that the total cost of gear received would be somewhere around the cost of the missing gear plus 30, but there were some problems.

To get the numbers, I had to make a lot of assumptions that weren't necessarily correct. For instance, Vanguard regiments receive a lascarbine or shotgun, but the Kasrkin receive a hot-shot las instead. It's possible that the FF design team simply added a cost to the regiment to upgrade to a hot-shot las, but since I don't have access to that number, I had to assume that the hot-shot las was bought as a rare weapon and that one of the other weapons was removed for its points value (since shotguns and las carbines have different availabilities and points values, I'm already running into trouble). I used the points value of the las carbine, simply because it seemed to make more sense to upgrade from a las carbine than it did from a shotgun. I'm aware that this is a purely subjective choice.

Since most of the gear for Kasrkin, Grenadiers, and Vanguard isn't specifically listed in the table, I had to use values based on the item's availability, while knowing that the design team may have assigned different values to the gear when creating the regiment. Worst of all, I don't have a price for the environmental seal since it isn't listed anywhere, and there are no prices for squad-assigned weapons by availability, only personal items, so I don't have a cost for the two grenade launchers assigned to a squad.

I came up with 83 points for the cost of Kasrkin gear over and above what is alloted by regiment talents, but this is without the price of the environmental seal. I also came up with 83 points for the cost of the items that are not in the Kasrkin list, but appear in the Grenadier and Vanguard descriptions, although this is without the price of the 2 squad grenade launchers. Using the values I assigned, the environmental seal would have to be 30 points higher in cost than the grenade launchers for the regimental kit's numbers to balance out, which seems ludicrous. So, I'm pretty sure that the design team used different values than I did, but considering all of the gear omissions I listed in the first post, I wonder if they made some mistakes too.

I have to say I generally disagree with the definition given to "grenadiers" by FFG anyway. While Grenadiers did indeed start off as units specialising in using grenades (in the 18th century), this definition has long been dropped. It tends to be elite infantry, which fits the GW definition where they are carapace armour wearing units ("heavy" infantry, which will almost always be regarded elite troops).

FFG's definition, with the rediculous grenade overloadage, just irritates me. especially giving a underslung grenade launcher to every soldier, while in the 40k setting these are quite rare items. It is also amusing that the only "canon" grenadier unit doesn't some equipped with the things they say defines grenadiers.

In the fluff, seems like Kasrkin are essential Storm Troopers from Cadia. I'm a bit surprised they are even considered a regiment at all. You could just play a Cadian Storm Trooper and call it a Kasrkin. The regiment itself seems to be on the crazier side of the power curve. They're all geared out like Storm Troopers, but you can pick any specialization. To me it removes a big selling point of Storm Troopers, even with their great aptitudes the loss of a comrade is pretty big deal.

Why play a Storm Trooper at all if you can make **** near a whole regiment of them?

Shiferbrains said:

Well, considering how they are set up, I almost get the feeling that they are intended to be mixed with a regular Cadian regiment. In a way, it could be used as an "out" if a player wants to be a Stormtrooper, but is generally unhappy with the class we got as presented.

Kasrkin are sort of in a weird place right now in the 40k universe, and it is partially the fault of GW's rather narrow view of Stormtroopers. Originally, they were a unique Cadian unit that could either be played as a standard Elite unit Stormtrooper, or as a Troop unit without the Stormtrooper's advanced Infiltration/Deep Strike options. Then when the IG codex got updated, they sort of became the Stormtrooper model.

On top of that, with the new Doctrine rules, any regiment could have their own Kasrkins with the Grenadier option, which worked essentially the same (only you also had to choose the Stormtrooper option to also get normal Stormtroopers). Funny thing was, there were some… balance issues, with the prefered "Elite" IG regiment having Grenadiers, and using Veterans (that is, a unit of IG grunts that survive multiple campaigns) as Elite options.

To reiterate: The prefered elite method was to use the setting's SpecOps unit as grunts, and the setting's more experienced grunts as SpecOps.

And now, with the most recent version of the Codex, Stormtroopers have been restored to their original version (Schola Proganium orphans), and Grenadiers are now just Vets with Carapace armor. Kasrkin have also been remarkably absent from fluff that I noticed. Then again, I haven't been keeping track since the newest codex, so I you might not want to hold me to that.

Back to HotE, I'll admit a slight disappointment with the way they approached Kasrkin's gear. I was sort of hoping they would create some sort of "grunt" version of Stormtrooper equipment, maybe a version of the Hellgun that harkens back to when they were called Hellguns, and were S3 AP5 instead of the current AP3 shortened range version.

Aw well, it was kind of neat that they used the fluff from Dawn of War: Winter Assualt, since that was the game that really got me interested in 40k.

RusVal said:

RusVal said:

Also, it should not be forgotten that the usage of doctrines "locks out" a whole lot of other units that would have to be re-purchased by spending more doctrine points. Not having the option of, say, Heavy Weapons Teams could potentially really handicap an army.

On a sidenote: I don't even see why other worlds having their own Kasrkin would be bad, even if the rules would allow it. I mean, if Cadia can do it, why should it be impossible for other planets to employ a similarly rigid training regime, just (likely) on a smaller scale?

Actually, Krieg also has its own elite Grenadiers, who are basically their version of Kasrkin. The general difference between "Storm Troopers" and "Grenadiers" is that the latter are raised from one worlds own veterans or simply those who have a natural talent for the work, which could translate into the different specialties being trained to do such missions. The fluff in a few places says that Grenadiers aren't always as well equipped or trained as Storm Troopers in different regiments, though, sometimes just having slightly better equipment than usual. I'm thinking the vague definition was intentional for flexibility reasons. So, while Kasrkin and Krieg Grenadiers are essentially homemade Storm Troopers, Grenadiers from Bob's World a couple segmentum over might just have a little bit of carapace, trusty (but worn) lasguns, and a whole lotta field experiance. But also remember the old saying about no problem surviving a proper application of high explosives (hence all the grenades). Which reminds me that in the 5th ed. Codex, Veterans deployed as Grenadiers have Heavy Weapon options, but Storm Trooprs do not, which is the cost of "high speed low drag" for Deep Striking, Scouting, Moving Through Cover, and Infiltration. In addition, they revamped STs since the 4th ed. to have specific Special Operations doctrines (Reconnaissance, Airborne Assault, Behind Enemy Lines) with the explanation that they're deployed often for very specific missions. Personally, I use mine quite a bit due to having such a small force, and they've even landed a killing blow on a Banesword in an Apocalypse game.

Mechanically, the only difference between Storm Troopers and Grenadiers back then was that the latter couldn't deep-strike or infiltrate. I suppose this can chiefly be attributed to a matter of deployment rather than training - dedicated Navy transports, including dropships, for Imperial Guard regiments is rather uncommon, so having a unit so very specialised on using them may seem impractical … albeit not entirely out of the question, which is why I would have little problem with a player using ST rules to represent a different world's Kasrkin. I'm not sure if Krieg would really qualify for this, but that would be one possible example.

I hadn't noticed that Grenadiers were relegated back from being their own unit into an option for veterans, though, so thanks for pointing this out! I suppose it works out - not every option that would exist in the background really needs to be its own troop type, after all.

Makes me wonder if GW would put the Kasrkin into ST or Veteran-Grenadier rules now, if they were to revisit that army list…

Supposedly, the 6th ed. Guard Codex is due next summer. But that's just long range rumor. The current Codex still uses images of the older style storm troopers (the one seen in the Core book), and actually only has one pic of Kasrkin on the Introduction page.

Theoretically, a world could have multiple tiers of troop quality that could result both in Veteran Grenadiers who still use lasguns and Elite Storm Trooper-grade Grenadiers who could have hot-shot lasguns due to advanced training.

In addition this also reminds me that there are patterns of hellgun/hot-shot lasgun that didn't require power packs and fed from standard las charge packs. Which they keep using in illustrations in both OW and DH for some reason. DH does have at least one listed that can operate as such.