DKoK

With the release of the new kill team and the new Death Korps of Krieg models, which look amazing, there are now a host of unanswered questions. 

The primary one has to be "when will the codex come out?". Well, if you believe the rumours, September. Honestly I don't know but it does sound plausible. We have new sculpts in kill team, released at the beginning of August and then the new codex in September. I'm hopeful that this will be the case and am looking forward to seeing what new goodies we will get. 

Which leads me in to the next set of questions, and I say set, because there are a lot of them. First and foremost in my mind is "are we going to get a full DKoK line?" which is followed very closely by "is this a 3rd guard line or a replacement line?". For the first part of we look at the models from kill team, these are very much mono-pose looking models, with their respirators and extras. This means that a full line up might be harder, but then we may well get a more multipart kits later, as we have done with other releases similar to this. I for one feel that we will see a full line up, with units like the engineers and mole mortar squads as well. This however leads to the second question, if they do a full line up, will this stand alongside the current lines, the Cadians and Catachans, or will it replace one of them? I hope that it will stand alongside the others, giving 3 very different armies to choose from. However, I am very worried that we will see it replace one of the lines, specifically Catachans. The Cadians have just received an upgrade sprue and whole the sculpts are not new, they are not that bad and the new additions have done a lot to bring the boxes up to the level they should be. The Catachans however, really need a full overhaul, as the kits are lacking multiple options and the poses and sculpts are very old and odd looking. We know that they can do good Catachan sculpts due to the two limited edition models, the colonel and Ripper Jackson but two good models is not enough for a full range. I'm not sure they would have spent all the time doing a rework on the Catachans and a new full range at the same time, hence I fear the Catachans days are numbered. 

One bit of information that supports the idea of a full range is the rumour of new plastic Death Riders. Now, while this would be great, I would like to see this as a multi regiment option. I really like rough riders and I would not like to see this unit pigeon holed in to a DKoK only option. Having a generic rough riders unit would be much better in my opinion. 

Again, this rumour leads nicely in to the next question that I have "if DKoK are being ported across from forge world, what other discontinued items are?". While Forge World discontinues items all the time as moulds run out, there have been a couple of noticeable options discontinued recently and more importantly at a similar time to a lot of DKoK stuff. I am of course refering to Elysian drop troops and the Tauros vehicles. It gives me a lot of hope that we will see some of these units moved from forge world to GW main, mainly the Tauros and Tauros venator. I would like to see Elysian troops put across as well, however, this then causes the same problem to new DKoK models pose, because this would then mean 4 possible guard lines, something that I highly doubt if profitable and with Catachans being the oldest range, I can see them being the ones that are squeezed out. 

All in all the new DKoK models are a great addition to the range and really do bring with them a lot of hope for guard players that we will get a major update to the infantry line. It also brings hope that we will see other Forge World lines come across to GW proper to add in options that are so desperately needed to the codex. However, for me there is also a note of caution, as new lines generally mean old ones are removed, and seeing as the oldest line is my beloved Catachans, this may mean their days are numbered.