I’ve never really felt the draw of running a full Knight army, Imperial or Chaos, but I have ran the odd allied Knight with Marines or Guard.

Following the recently released Death Guard Codex I’ve been feeling the draw of Chaos, and the thought of running a Chaos Knight started to appeal. 

Before I started this review I didn’t have the itch to run a full Chaos Knight army though. Will that change?

Our thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a copy of the Chaos Knight Codex to review for you folks, and for sending us the new Knight Ruinator to unbox. You can preorder both right now via our affiliates at Element Games. Doing so will score you a discount VS RRP and will help us out massively. 

Before we get stuck into the Codex Review…

Knight Ruinator Unboxing

Alongside the new Codex we also have the small (well not so small) matter of a brand new Knight to stomp around.

The Knight Ruinator is a close-range fire support knight. He’s equipped with a Darkflame Lance (aka, one big nasty flamer) and a Fellbore (a huge drill). He is also sporting some fetching Terrorpulse missiles. 

We’ll cover what the Knight does later in the article when we tackle the datasheets, but needless to say he’s an excellent choice. 

If you didn’t fancy the Ruinator though, the same kit also makes either a Descretor, Rampager or Abominant. The Ruinator unique parts are in on one handy little sprue, as you can see below:

You can watch our unboxing below:

Codex Chaos Knights Review

And so on to the Codex itself.

The book opens with some stunning army shots and of course some excellent written work. The lore of the book delves into the background of these corrupted Knights, detailing each of the different Chassis and Variants, as well as all the different named households. When the book switches to the different houses it also shows art of a traditional knight of that household, helping you with your painting schemes. 

I haven’t read much Chaos Knight lore, or in fact stories, so I found these opening pages really fun and interesting to read, more so then any recent Codex I’ve bought or reviewed. 

The miniature showcase which follows up the lore gives you lots of close up details of the models, providing you with inspiration for your own Knights. It also spends a page showing you some of the different heraldry, to help transfer up your stompy robots.

I am really, REALLY looking forward to painting a Ruinator. 

What follows is a very handy painting guide. It walks you through painting a Knight in subassemblies. It’s very easy to follow, and it’s so good to see GW showing you how to paint one in subassemblies, especially with a lot of the metal being a little tricky to get to. It’s clear and concise, and a great little guide. 

To wrap up you get to see some very clever conversions, to again give you some ideas on how to make your Knights look even more Chaos-y.

Where is Combat Patrol?

At this point I would normally go on to mention the faction’s Combat Patrol…who is in it, etc, however Chaos Knights do not have one, which makes sense when you are an army of stompy robots. 

They do have a Battleforce up for preorder today which includes 7 War Dogs, which can be assembled as any of the different War Dog variants. Be quick though, as these never hang around for long. 

Chaos Knights Army Rule and Detachments

Harbingers of Death

And so we move quickly on to the really important bit, the rules, kicking off with the general Army Rule.

In the Index the Army Rule was a bit underwhelming. It could mess around with your opponent’s Battle-shock, but it wasn’t very exciting. In the Codex this has been replaced with a table of different abilities. 

At the start of the first, third and fifth battle rounds you can either pick one of the abilities to become active for your army or leave it to the (Chaos) Gods, and roll D6 and get both abilities. 

Ideally, if you roll, you want to land on Doom and Despair, to reduce your enemies’ leadership and make it harder for them to pass Battle-shock, so that you can then take advantage of the +1 to Wound. It’s a gamble rolling, but could pay off.

These are: 

• Deathly Terror – -1 Leadership to enemy models within 9” 
• Despair (Aura) – Again, -1 Leadership to models within 9”, but specifies that this stacks with Deathly Terror
• Doom – When attacking a unit that is Battle-shocked, you get +1 to Wound
• Darkness – If an enemy model attacking one of your Knights is either Battle-shocked, or over 18” away, then they are -1 to Hit
• Dismay – In the Battle-shock phase of your opponents command phase they have to take a battleshock test for units under the Starting Strength if they are within 9” of a model from your army
• Delirium – Any enemy units below half-strength within 9” of one of your Knights takes D3 Mortal Wounds should they fail any Battle-shock tests.
• Dominion – Add 3” to the range of any Aura abilities. 

I also like that you have three opportunities to use this table throughout the game. 

Also in this section you’ll find two box-outs, one explaining the rules for Dreadblades (basically how to take either one Knight or up to 3 War Dogs in your everyday Chaos armies. I’m for sure going to run a Knight with my Death Guard at some point), and the second one covering the general rules for Super Heavy Walkers (can move through some terrain, can pass through Engagement Range etc).

Detachments

Traitoris Lance

The first is what I would call a very general Detachment. The one that everything can take advantage of. This is Fellbored home (get it, drilled home, Fellbore drill, I’ll get my coat…) by the detachment rule which is called Paragons of Terror. It allows you, at the start of the first battle round after selecting one or more Dread abilities, to pick a third. It states the third one you pick at this stage cannot be randomly generated.

At first I was like, meh, it’s an OK rule, but then I gave it more thought. It’s actually pretty handy, and always ensures that you’ll get your favourite ability from the list (either from getting it when rolling randomly or from choosing at this stage).

Also, depending on your rolls, you could get a really nasty combo on the Dread abilities. 

The enhancements are pretty neat too, for example:

• Tyrant’s Shadow – In short, gives the bearer the sticky objectives rule. Handy when you don’t have a lot of models to just sit on objectives.
• Veil of Medrengard – Grants the bearer a 4+ invulnerable save against ranged attacks, and a 5+ against melee attacks. A must take IMHO.

As you may imagine, some of the stratagems for this detachment further lean into Battle-shock tests, such as Pterrorshades. Pick a Knight within 12” of an enemy unit that has just failed a Battle-shock test, then roll six D6. For each 4+ that enemy unit takes a mortal wound, whilst your Knight heals a wound. Neat!

Conquerors Without Mercy not only sounds cool, but is cool, as it grants a Chaos Knight that has made a charge an extra pip of AP in melee.Not only this, but if you managed to destroy a unit your opponent has to take Battle-shock tests for every one of their units within 6”.

Now you see a big stompy knight, now you don’t with Storm of Darkness. Usable in your opponents shooting phase this handy strat grants a Chaos Knight Stealth and the Benefit of Cover. 

This detachment doesn’t have much in the way of restrictions when it comes to its abilities, enhancements and strats, but does weigh heavy on your opponent failing Battle-shock tests in order for your special abilities to do the work.

Infernal Lance

The detachment rule for this one reminds me a lot of the Chaos Space Marine Dark Pact rule. 

Entitled Malefic Surge, in your Command Phase one or more Chaos Knights can make a Malefic Surge. To do so, you take a Leadership test. Passed? That’s OK, more on to the ability. If you fail, you still get to use the ability, but also take D3 mortal wounds for your troubles. In either case, your Chaos Knight becomes Empowered until your next Command Phase. Whilst Empowered you can use one of the following abilities. Once an ability has been used your Knight is no longer Empowered:

• Unholy Hunger – When this model makes a move, advance of fall back move, you can add 3”
• Diabolic Power – You can power up this in the shooting or fight phase. Pick either Lethal Hits or Sustained Hits 1, all of your weapons get that ability until the end of the phase. Epic!
• Unnatural Fortitude – Gain a 5+ invulnerable save and a 6+ Feel No Pain.

I mean…you are always going to pick Diabolic Power right?….Right?!

If the answer was yes to the above, then you’ll like the first of the enhancements I’m going to mention. Knight Diabolus improves the Weapon Skill of the bearer’s melee weapons by 1, and whilst it is using Diabolic Power it also gains the Lance ability. 

Fleshmetal Fusion is less about killing and more about surviving. It grants +1 Toughness to your Knight, and whilst the Knight is being Empowered by Unnatural Fortitude it adds +1 to armour saves for any attacks hitting it with damage 1.

The stratagems for this detachment are weighted quite heavily on making your Knights harder to kill, or play off the Malefic Surge ability.

• Diabolic Bulwark – Usable in your opponents shooting phase, it grants one of your Knights a 4+ invulnerable save
• Corrupting Taint – Only usable on a Character that has just used a Malefic Surge. Basically grants sticky objectives
• Hellforged Construction – Worsen your opponents AP by 1 in melee

Whilst I really like the mechanic behind the detachment, I was a little underwhelmed by the strats. To a competitive gamer they could be pretty good, but I personally wasn’t much of a fan.

Lords of Dread

Now this…is a super cool detachment. 

The detachment rule isn’t the coolest, but is fairly handy. It basically grants any of your Characters +2 to their OC. In addition, so long as your Warlord is still kicking around you can use the Claimed for the Dark Gods strat for 0CP (more on that shortly).

That rule isn’t what makes this detachment cool. Check out some of these enhancements:

• Warp-borne Stalker – Gives a Chaos Knight the Deep Strike ability. That’s right, a Deep Striking Knight! Not only that, but once per battle at the end of your opponents turn you can pick him up and put him into Strategic Reserves. Amazing!
• Throne Mechanicum of Skulls – Re-roll charge rolls by the bearer. Also, once per battler gains Advance and Charge
• Putrid Carapace – Grants the bearer a 2+ armour save and once per battle you can heal D6 wounds. Second part of that rule can be used in either players Command phase.

I really like the bonus once per game added abilities, and would like to see stuff like that more often. Like a ‘incase of emergency, hit the big red button’.

Were you wondering what the aforementioned Claimed for the Dark Gods strat was? Did you guess it granted sticky objectives? If you did, then you get a cookie! (an imaginary one, but a cookie nonetheless).

Crushed like Vermin is worth a shot out. You pick an enemy unit that your Knight has just walked over (has to be a Character, a running theme with this detachment) and roll six D6s. Each 4+ does a mortal wound and forces a Battle-shock test. As you may imagine this does not work on Monsters of Vehicles.

Did your enemy dare to take down one of your Character Knights? Spiteful Demise is a 1CP strat that can be used on a Character Knight as they are killed, and allows you to Deadly Demise on a 4+ rather than a 6+. Big badda boom!

I think this is a my favourite detachment of the book. It pushes you to take big Knights and has some cool once per battle abilities. Plus, who wouldn’t want a Deep Striking Knight that can also basically redeploy anywhere! (well, with the normal restrictions).

Houndpack Lance

For those who prefer slightly smaller Knights, you could always take this detachment and as many War Dogs as you can roster, then this could be the set of rules for you.

Marked Prey is the detachment rule. Basically you pick an enemy unit at the start of your Command Phase and your War Dogs then get Sustained Hits 1 against said unit.

Because this detachment is aimed for War Dogs, it does have a few separate rules:

• Your army must include three or more War Dogs
• War Dogs gain the Battleline keyword
• Select three War Dogs when mustering an army. They gain the Character keywords. This allows you to give them Enhancements and can choose one as your Warlord.

Some pretty straightforward enhancements for your little chaotic puppies!

• Final Howl – Whilst a friendly War Dog is within 6” of the bearer, they get re-rolls of 1 to Wound
• Panoply of the Cursed Knights – Worsen any incoming attacks by 1 AP. 

I’m really feeling the strats here. They feel like you are commanding a wolf pack which I really really like. I do prefer when rules and fluff intertwine! 

Encircling Pack can be used at the end of your opponents Fight phase, and allows you to remove a War Dog from the battlefield (they do however need to be by a board edge and not in engagement range) and pop them in Strategic Reserves.

Hungry for Combat is a little wordy, but pretty good. It can only be used if you have two War Dogs in the same combat, but grants them both Crit Hits on 5+s rather than 6s. 

My favourite is probably Animalistic Rage, which in short allows a War Dog that has just been destroyed to either fight or shoot. It can only attack the unit that killed it, but still very good. 

I could see this detachment being pretty good to be honest. I prefer a mix of big and little Knights, so I cannot see me using it super soon, but I think some competitive players may find themselves delving into this detachment. 

Datasheets

Ah yes, the big one. What, if anything, has changed on the Datasheets for the Chaos Knights….

One major change across the ‘normal’ Knight chassis (Abominant, Despoiler, etc) is that they are now Toughness 11 rather than 12, but have 26 wounds rather than 22. War Dogs have also lost 1 from their Toughness (now T9) but have gained 2 wounds. OC has been reduced to 6.

Apologies if I miss anything here. I’ve tried to change all the key changes

Let’s take a look:

• Knight Tyrant: Fairly straightforward one to start. He’s lost a pip of toughness, now T12, but is up to 28 wounds. The only other noteworthy things are his Ectoplasma getting extra rend on both the normal and supercharged variants (-3 and -4 respectively) and his Harpoon now hits on 2s rather than 3s
• Knight Despoiler: His Dread Dominion Aura has been tweaked a little bit. Instead of adding 1 to Battle-shock tests of nearby War Dogs, he now instead gives +1 OC and Leadership. 
• Knight Abominant: Aside from the above mentioned Toughness and Wound changes, the only other change I can see is the Aura range of Vortex Terrors is now doubled (now 24”, was 12”)
• Knight Ruinator: The new kid on the block. Starting with his abilities, Methodical Destruction allows him to choose an enemy unit at the start of the first battle round, and he then gets full rerolls to Wound against it. Once that target is dead he can then pick another. War Dogs within 9” of him getting an extra pip of AP (when targeting the closest enemy) which is amazing. His Darklance has 2D6 attacks, S8, AP -1 and D 2, whilst his Fellbore (big ass drill) has Strike (A 4, 3+, S 14, AP -3, D 6) and a Sweep (A 10, 3+, S 9, AP-2, D 2) profile. 
• Knight Desecrator: Zero changes that I can see (Toughness and Wounds aside)
• Knight Rampager: Bloodlust has changed. Now when this model charges his melee weapons gain Devasting Wounds.
• War Dog Huntsman: The Huntsmen ability now grants full rerolls to Wound, instead of rerolling 1s to Hit and Wound. 
• War Dog Executioner: His Executioner ability is the same, but has had some text added. Now, if this model destroys an enemy unit, all enemy units within 3” of said destroyed unit must take a Battle-shock test
• War Dog Brigand: His ability has changed. It now get Ignores Cover when shooting enemy units within range of an Objective Marker
• War Dog Stalker: No change
• War Dog Karnivore: Reaper Chaintalon no longer has a Strike profile. It’s Karnivore ability now includes reroll Advances, as well as Charges. 

Crusade

As with all 10th Edition Codexes, the Chaos Knights have a number of pages dedicated to rules for Crusade. 

If you fancy taking the Chaos Knights on a Crusade you can take advantage of the Amassing Power, which actually is a little more complicated than other Crusade mechanics I’ve read, but in short has you balancing your Knights on a Power Base. Depending on how well you are doing on the Power Base depends on what abilities you can unlock within your battles. 

As you would expect there are some awesome traits, enhancements, Requisitions and Agendas in here that are all very flavourful and worth unlocking. 

Summary

And that, sadly, brings us to the end of the review and time to reflect on the Codex.

All in all, I like it. Not many changes on the Datasheets, but what the Codex does offer is 4 very different detachments which offer slight differences in playstyle. My particular favourite one is the Lords of Dread, as I think it ticks all the boxes for me, even if the main mechanic isn’t as cool as say the Malefic Surge detachment ability from the Infernal Lance detachment. 

The Crusade rules, to be honest, are disappointing. Perhaps I’m not ‘getting it’, but the main mechanic has IMO been poorly written and just doesn’t draw me in. It’s a shame, as the rest of the Crusade content is great.

The Codex doesn’t feel broken. It feels balanced and fun to play. I haven’t felt the draw to run a full Knight army before, but I am now, as well as maybe allying in a Knight into my Death Guard. Feel like Mortarian, a Great Unclean One and a Knight need to find a way to all go in a list somehow…

This book hinges on the Knight’s points costs more than any other army, aside from maybe the Imperial Knights. 

I for one, cannot wait to give this book a run out. 

Our thanks again to Games Workshop for sending us the Codex and Knight Ruinator to unbox and review for you folks. 

Published by David Jennings

Born and raised in Crewe in Cheshire, Dave is a geek through and through. Enjoys designing and managing websites. View all posts by David Jennings