Cadia Stands! Depths of the Damned Update
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Take up your weapon, Guardsmen. The Imperium calls.

A personal take on a Cadian shock trooper build for the new Depths of the Damned Update. Make sure you hit those headshots and Exhilarating Takedown + Confirmed Kill +Tunnel Vision + Iron Will + Executioner's Stance will keep your toughness up even if your surrounded, not to mention doing a staggering amount of damage to elites and even bosses once they poke their rotten heads out of cover. Keep killing ranged enemies and you'll find yourself near constantly in Executioner's Stance , especially on higher difficulties. The Kantrael Mk IX Infantry Lasgun I believe works best to ensure you 1-shot gunners and shooters but with the new inherent 25% Ranged Damage boost Veteran gets I could see the other marks working. Here I use the Catachan Mk VI Combat Blade for its quick trash-mulching abilities and its mobility, allowing you to catch up with the team if you fall behind. And Shredder Frag Grenade are great generalist tools to stagger hordes, stack DOT and make clutch revives.

Weapons

Alternative ranged weapons that I think work best are the Lucius Mk IV Helbore Lasgun or its variants with Weight of Fire and Surgical , and the Graia Mk VII Vigilant Autogun (make sure to swap off Shock Trooper if you do pick a non-las weapon.) For melee, you ideally want something quick and versatile, so your best options are the Atrox Mk VII Tactical Axe and its family with its dodginess, or the Munitorum Mk I Sapper Shovel . The Sapper shovel can do quite a lot of work if you change some nodes to Serrated Blade and Trench Fighter Drill or other melee nodes. If blessed with Skullcrusher and Uncanny Strike it can even help deal with Carapace, or at least make the Carapace easier for your teammates to handle. And best of call, it fits the Cadian vibe which is really what any of us want here. 

Talents

 For talent choices Withering Fire is sort of a strange pick I admit, but being able to pierce poxwalkers in order to hit specials and elites hiding behind them is extremely helpful. If your looking to swap things out, Rending Strikes , Grenade Tinkerer and Field Improvisation could easily be swapped out for other talents, my recommendations being Trench Fighter Drill , Serrated Blade or Deadshot (though personally I can't stand the stamina drain). And of course, Krak Grenade will work just fine and make you more well-rounded, but I feel my team can usually handle armor if I can take care of specials and ranged elites for them. Essential picks I would not swap off are Exhilarating Takedown , Confirmed Kill , Demolition Team , Bring it Down! , Iron Will , and Superiority Complex . You probably can make Focus Target! work here, but with this builds Headshot-focus I believe Marksman's Focus will prove superior.

Auras

With veteran getting a built-in, inherent Survivalist I think any of the 3 choices could work here. But, since your mostly trying to stay at range and already have extraordinary ammo efficiency thanks to Shock Trooper and the innate Survivalist , Fire Away is going to be the most impactful. 

Curios

As for Curios, 2 Toughness + 1 Stamina is just my personal preference since more stamina lets me run longer and help guarantee revives. Could easily be changed to 3 Toughness curios if that's your fancy. 3 +toughness perks is just all-around helpful, 3 +stam regeneration follows my above philosophy, and 3 +revive speed is REALLY helpful if your meatshields/teammates start going down. Can swap revive speed to something else if you decide to take Leave No One Behind though. Supringly, I don't reccomend +combat ability regen, since with Executioner's stance you'll be consistently getting your ability off cooldown before you run out of ranged enemies to shoot. Gunner damage resistance is also a decent option, but all your toughness regeneration + the fact that your extremely capable of dealing with ranged elites yourself make it not necessary IMO.

TL;DR - stay in the back, keep team clear of specials, pop 'nades if surrounded or need to revive, use knife to reposition quickly, stay in exec stance as long as possible

Now, take up your lasgun, soldier of Cadia! Your team needs you!

art by GC-Concept Art