Chaos Knights are the faction that I played the most in 9th edition and I am very excited to get them back on the tabletop in the new edition, big robots that worship the dark gods whats not to like.

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Army Rules

Chaos Knights have the new and improved Harbingers of Dread rule which is a lot simpler than the previous version, each model in your army gains a bonus ( there are only 2 ) depending on the battle round and once a bonus is active it becomes active for the entire game.

• Battle Round 1 Despair Aura – Enemy units with 12″ subtract 1 from any leadership tests or battleshock tests they have to make.
• Battle Round 3+ Doom and Darkness – This ability gives 2 abilities the first being any enemy unit that is battleshocked your chaos knights get +1 to wound rolls against them which is very nice and the second ability is battleshocked units are -1 to their to hit rolls when targeting your chaos knights.

I like this as an army rule but it all depends on how often your opponent fails a battleshock / leadership test.

Chaos Knights also get the Super Heavy Walker rule where they can ignore models ( not titanic ) and terrain features that are 4″ or less when making normal, advance or fall back moves

Dreadblades

When I read this rule my first thought was “I could do a Chaos Space Marine force with knights ” so well played Games Workshop… well played. If every model in your army has the Chaos keyword you can include either 1 titanic ( not the ship ) or 3 war dog models even though they do not have your faction keyword with the restriction that they cannot have enhancements and cannot be your warlord, like I said I could see myself painting up some Black Legion for my knights to join.

Detachment Rule

Chaos Knight players start with the Traitoris Lance detachment which is worded very strangely and it was only because of the designers note below the rule that it made sense, in a nutshell any enemy unit within 12″ of a chaos knight model that has lost any models ( units that have 1 model test if they loose 1 wound or more ) must take a battleshock test in their command phase regardless of whether they are below half strength or not.

This combos well with the army rule as the more tests you can force your opponent to make the more they hopefully will fail those tests.

Enhancements

• Lord of Dread – At the start of the fight phase you can select an enemy unit within engagement range of this model and they must immediately take a battleshock test.
• Aura of Terror – If the bearer captures an objective marker that objective remains under your control until your opponent captures it and that objective marker has the despair aura rule that your chaos knights get.
• The Traitors Mark – The Doom and Darkness ability is active for the bearer from battle round 1 instead of the 3rd.
• Panoply of the Cursed Knights – each time the bearer is targeted by an attack -1 to the armour penetration of that attack.

Stratagems

• Dread Hounds 1CP – At the start of your shooting phase or fight phase you can pick two or more War Dog units and one enemy unit that is eligible as the target for both units and until the end of the phase those war dog units can only target that enemy unit but your attacks gain the sustained hits 1 ability and if that enemy unit is battle shocked then you do critical hits on a 5+ as well, a very wordy stratagem but pretty good if you have a couple of war dogs.
• Disdain for the Weak 1CP – In the fight phase just after one of your opponents units selects a target for their attacks the target of those attacks ( your unit ) gains the feel no pain 6+ ability which is increased to a 5+ if the unit attacking is battle shocked.
• Pterrorshades 1CP – This stratagem is actually very cool so when an enemy unit fails a battleshock test if there is a Chaos Knight model within 12″ then you roll six D6 and each 4+ does a mortal wound to the battle shocked unit and the chaos knight regains that many wounds back.
• A Long Leash 1CP – This stratagem allows up to three War Dog models to count as being in range of any aura’s a chosen Abhorrent model has regardless of where they are on the table until your next command phase ( use this stratagem in your command phase).
• Knights of Shade 1CP – This stratagem allows up to two War Dog models or one Titanic Chaos Knight to move through models and terrain features horizontally as if they were not there.
• Diabolic Bulwark 1CP – You can pick a friendly Chaos Knight unit in your opponents shooting phase and it gains a 4+ invulnerable save until the end of the phase.

Datasheets

For me the data sheets are still very similar to what they were in their 9th edition codex, the Laser Destructor is still very scary and is now 3 shots as standard making it even more scary especially against Vehicles or Monsters, my big disappointment is the melee focused knights like the Karnivore and Despoiler who get both the Reaper Chaintalon / Chainsword and the Slaughterclaw / Warpstrike Claw depending on the unit but can still only use one of those weapons in combat, I would have been really happy if the Slaughterclaw / Warpstrike Claw had the extra attacks 2 ability so they were scarier than the ranged knights in combat but sadly i’d rather have a knight with a ranged weapon and a single combat weapon like the Desecrator over the Despoiler any day still which is a slight shame.

Summary

In summary Chaos Knight armies are possibly a very terrifying army depending on how your opponent is with their battleshock tests, what I like about Chaos Knights is they can force your opponent to take potentially a lot of battleshock tests with some modifiers to that test which is great to see what I don’t like is it feels that if your opponent makes a lot of those battleshock tests your army mechanic might not come into play much only playing some games will convince me either way and I do plan on playing some games with my Chaos Knights.