Chaos Knights - Pain incoming

So the new Chaos Knights codex appears to have quite a wide range tools that are perfect for handling Aeldari, specifically in countering our tough Coven units, machine gunning through units that rely on negative hit modifiers; our Mandrakes, Venoms, Fliers and allied Alaitoc, and outright sprinting faster than we can fly.

Specifically, here are a couple things I've identified that we absolutely must look out for:

Changes to Trail Of Destruction Stratagem:

It now allows rerolls of all hit rolls, rather than failed hit rolls. This is huge when it comes to modifiers, as a double Gatling Knight throwing 24 dice (just from the gatlings) into our fliers can now reroll better than ever before. It also now can be used in Overwatch, just in case you thought you'd use a sacrificial model to deny overwatch so that your melee units could get stuck in. Again, 24 dice rerolling (and that's only the two primary weapons) is terrifying.

Relic Helm of the Warp Sight:

The user ignores all hit modifiers when shooting. Can't go on Tyrants (basically Castellans or Valients). That's it. Yup. This guy will kill 2 and half fliers per turn all by himself.

Daemonic Surge:

There's a lot to unpack with this, but every part of it is scary to us. Every turn, the Chaos Knight player can sacrifice d3 wounds per knight to choose to:

1) Make that Knight T9, in which case our Blasters will really, really struggle to do anything.
2) Make that knight gain +1 Strength and +1 Damage to one weapon that knight has.
3) Make that Knight gain +2 Move, +1 to Advance rolls, and +1 to Charge rolls.

In particular 2) is bad news for us. A Gatling gun is already S6 D2; this puts it to S7 D3. An Armiger Autocannon is already S7 D3; this puts it up to S8 D4. This dramatically increases the chances for a Knight to cripple or one shot any single model we have with a single weapon of their own - especially our T6/T7 range of models; Ravagers, Jetfighters, Voidravens, Grotesques, Talos. And each knight can do this each and every turn, so you better roll like a god on your 5++!

Khornate Target: Once per game in the fight phase switch off the invulnerable save of all targets it hits, and switch off his own. This could absolutely maul our coven units and our Wyches in combat, and if they catch an Archon, he's toast.

Quicksilver Throne Of Slaanesh: +1 to Advances, +1 to Charges, and always strikes first. This doesn't seem that scary at first, but what it does do is basically undoes the Vexator Mask by making the model act as normal. So if the Knight charges... yeah, he's swinging first.

This relic in particular pairs extremely well with the aforementioned Daemonic Surge bonus that boosts movement, a Warlord Trait that offers +1 to Advances and +1 to Charges (and +1 Attack if it's in our deployment zone), and a Dreadblade Pact that has a 50/50 chance to add yet another 2" to Move.

The end result is a Gallant-equivalent Chaos Knight that Advances a minimum of 17"+d6 or 19"+d6 (if it rolls well on that Pact) and can Charge 2d6+3" with Full Tilt. It only gets faster if they go for a Lancer Knight instead - adding another d6 to the advance roll.

So yeah, it runs quicker than our Red Grief Venoms.

You'll 100% want to save Agents Of Vect to stop that Full Tilt.


Interested in other combos people have seen, or other ways we could counter them!

I have been running Hawk shroud Gallants and a Valiant with some pretty decent results. i had not real intention of switching over to play chaos knights but i am struggling to see why anyone wouldn't at this point.

The best thing in this entire codex is the standard Renegade Gallant. its taken a massive points drop down to 307 points. On top of that from what i can gather you can get them up to 7 attacks a piece, and as you mention @hydranixx they can ignore inv saves. Result: these things will kill a 20 man unit of Wychs in a single turn, so tar pits are no longer an option.

The other strong things i can see so far are the Valiant / Helverin Armigers. 3d6 auto hitting s8 ap2 d3 shoots will over kill anything and laugh at negatives to hit. This will hurt other armies much more then us at least.

If i can get my hands on the codex before the coming weekend then i will be having a game as them and against them. I plan on running 3 Gallants 1 Valiant and 2 Helverins for just under 1850 points (will need to check math)
As for playing against them if they are spamming Gallants then ill probably be trying to get everything on top of buildings /unchangeable Asap, and if there playing with double Gatling Cannons then ill just have to play for the mission. Either way i have my doubts about how we will perform against them.

Just another reason to play 12 Skyweavers with a 3++ and -2 to to be hit on 1 of them....


With that said, i was hoping for a Nurgle only Knight to be T9, very fluffy. I was hoping Slaanesh was faster too. Got some of that so thats fun. I like these knights better than Imperial ones personally. But i dont like that there are so many knights and knights are meta.

What is worst is... DK troops with Knights are going to be worst than IG + Knights. I can see CSM 3 Lord D's with DG spam pox and a knight or 3 depending on points.

amishprn86 wrote:

What is worst is... DK troops with Knights are going to be worst than IG + Knights.

This honestly irritates me. They've just gotten around to nerfing Knights after over a year of them completely dominating the tournament scene, and they immediately release a different type of Knight that also looks incredibly powerful.

I'm sure the models must make GW an absolute fortune but I kind of miss when Titans weren't a part of mainstream 40K.

Yeah... I dont like super heavies in my 2k games. My local main group (about 25 of us) all moved towards AoS. We still do local leagues but they are narrative ones, right now we are doing "Custom Heroes" you are forced to buy 3 generic heroes and keep them for all 10 league games, but we also give +3CP if you take only 1 codex.

Knights are on another scale and should be that way. If the FoC... aka detachments wasnt "play what you want and get rewarded" it might not be a problem.

Every tournament i do, i always get to the top table and its always 3 Knights with 3 relics and 2 loyal 32's, literally every time, at least now there are custode 3 super tanks i have to worry about /s

I got a glimpse of the new meta with Chaos Knights yesterday and it was basically what @amishprn86 described: three Disco Lords, a bunch of Plague Bearers, some psykers to buff everyone, and a scary new Chaos Knight (regular Knight using the new Chaos rules, traits, relics.) The guy running it was facing a pretty standard strong T’au list with three Riptides. a bunch of drones, Broadsides, Fire Warriors, and HQs. The T’au player was nearly tabled by turn three and conceded. So, that’s going to be what we can look forward to for the next year or until GW realizes how insanely good Lord Discordants are when combined with all the toys Chaos has to play with now.

Ollie wrote:

The best thing in this entire codex is the standard Renegade Gallant. its taken a massive points drop down to 307 points. On top of that from what i can gather you can get them up to 7 attacks a piece, and as you mention @hydranixx they can ignore inv saves. Result: these things will kill a 20 man unit of Wychs in a single turn, so tar pits are no longer an option.

That's not correct. 307 is it's price pre-weapons. With sword and fist a Knight Despoiler comes to 372 points; a Knight Rampager is 392 with the same loadout.

Both versions can easily start the game with 7 attacks on the charge, yes, but that's not all - both of them can get even more than that.

There's a Iconoclast strat for 1 CP where for every 10 models the knight kills, it gains +1 attack, and there's a relic where for every Character the knight kills, it gains +1 attack and +1 strength.

So in your 20 Wych example, it's not unrealistic to expect such as knight to be exceeding 9 or 10 attacks base by the mid game.

sweetbacon wrote:

a scary new Chaos Knight (regular Knight using the new Chaos rules, traits, relics.)

Unless you've not included two War Dogs (Armigers) this is not a legal loadout. A chaos knight has no trait rules if it's in a Super Heavy Aux. It needs to be in a Super Heavy Detachment to get those.

So don't let any player tell you that his single Chaos Knight can benefit from the trait bonus.

Which, for anyone not up to speed, is either Conquerors Without Mercy, or Daemonic Surge.



I don't think that Chaos Knights are better than Imperial Knights in an overall sense. Imperial Knights have better CP batteries, more niche support options like Assassins, and they can spend 1 measly cp to get back to top profile, unlike Chaos Knights.

However, Chaos Knights are far, far better than before, and for us Xenos players, Chaos Knights look at least as scary if not more.

So its not like the normal knights? You loose everything? B.c just the trait isnt that bad, you still count as that trait for relics/stratagems, etc..

hydranixx wrote:

Ollie wrote:

The best thing in this entire codex is the standard Renegade Gallant. its taken a massive points drop down to 307 points. On top of that from what i can gather you can get them up to 7 attacks a piece, and as you mention @hydranixx they can ignore inv saves. Result: these things will kill a 20 man unit of Wychs in a single turn, so tar pits are no longer an option.

That's not correct. 307 is it's price pre-weapons. With sword and fist a Knight Despoiler comes to 372 points; a Knight Rampager is 392 with the same loadout.

ah unfortunately you seem to be right. i wouldn't mind still running them / playing against them but with duo Avenger Gatling cannon knights only going up 20pts i think they will remain the go to.

amishprn86 wrote:

So its not like the normal knights? You loose everything? B.c just the trait isnt that bad, you still count as that trait for relics/stratagems, etc..

They don't lose everything, no, they specifically lose the trait bonuses Conquerors Without Mercy, or Daemonic Surge, but they still count as being Iconoclast or Infernal for the purposes of Stratagems and Relics.

The Traits that they miss out on are a really big deal though - variable and flexible bonuses throughout the game if they were to go Infernal (that I described above) and additional melee prowess if they were thinking of going Iconoclast, which for anyone interested, gives them:

When they charge, they gain +1 attack and an extra -1AP to all weapons in that turn's fight phase, and force any enemy units that fail a morale test to lose one additional model.

Just make sure your opponent isn't being cheeky and getting these bonuses in an Aux.

Ollie wrote:

ah unfortunately you seem to be right. i wouldn't mind still running them / playing against them but with duo Avenger Gatling cannon knights only going up 20pts i think they will remain the go to.

I agree, Gatlings are as legit as they've ever been, and with the extra support that this codex gives them they're still 100% worth it after the points increase, either singular or in a pair. That said, with the points going down on both other weapons, I'm actually starting to look at the other choices more favourably; my triple Knight Despoiler loadout for a tourney this weekend is going to be:

Thermal + Gatling
Gatling + Gatling
RFBC + RFBC

I'm interested to see how it handles my local meta - Imperial soup, pure Imperial Knights, Tau, Plaguebearer spam, and Ork horde lists. Sadly since the removal of Doom not many people are rocking Dark Eldar anymore

I really miss the days when Knights and other super-heavies were confined to Apocalypse.

It doesn't help that they have some of the most boring rules possible for units of their size.


Anyway, regarding Spiky Knights, two more things to beware of:

- There's a stratagem that allows a Knight to resurrect with d3 wounds remaining (can only be done once per Knight). Could be a real pain if you've just used the last of your anti-vehicle firepower to finish it off.

- There's also a stratagem that allows a Knight to regain up to 6 wounds - 1 for each model it kills that turn.

Agents of Vect may be more necessary than ever if you don't want to face resurrecting, regenerating Knights.

so i played in a local tourney against 3 triple knight armies... i lost 2 and i won 1. guess how it went down?
Of course i won the match i played first (and destroyed a knight in my turn) and lost the other two where the knight guy went first (and cost me half of my army first round). All the games were boring as frak btw no real tactics or anything just mindless shooting and tons of dice rolling.
So this is how GW rolls now. Knights everywhere, you play first you win you play second you loose, ITC, ETC, matched play and 159390543043 rules dont matter this is the meta now, one dice roll before you start the game on who plays first determining the outcome. And it sucks like hell
i really hope at least the rumors are true and apocalypse is really a 9th edition preview
Well rant out im staying away from tournament crap until 9th probably and ill be playing a few friendly games with lord of war limits to have some fun again with this game...

Play with more terrain and use new CA terrain rules, +2 cover with -1 to be hit makes gunline much harder to play.

Tournaments are the problem, ITC being the "normal" is the problem. 8th when using all the 8th rules and how it is meant to be played is a completely different game than what players are used to and these netlists or 3 knights + CP farm with good troops dont work.

I was playing nids a few weeks ago with those rules for my full club to show a point, i had Warriors with -2 to hit and a 2+ save. It changed the mindset of everyone and they loved it. These are WARRIORS something everyone says are terrible, even knights had a hard time killing 3, players have 1 good knight for shooting now (Relic to ignore mods) and the others doing 1/3 the damage as the normally could.

You see Rhinos, Preds, Drop pods, etc.. when playing with the FULL rules set. Mobility and melee are very important.

We added in cities of death terrain rules as well and that is even better. Those rules are 100% better.

I've actually had more ITC success going second. The ability to know exactly what you have to do to score points is quite handy.

Cities if death sounds fun. I'd like to play it now, but I don't know if I would say it is the way it is meant to be played. Is rather think it is *a* way to play.

amishprn86 wrote:

8th when using all the 8th rules and how it is meant to be played is a completely different game than what players are used to

Interesting. I agree with DevilDoll that going first is more important than it should be, so I am very interested in hearing how that doesn't have to be. So would you kindly elaborate?
- What does "all the 8th rules" include?
- And how is the game "meant to be played"?

Terrain, there are a large amount of terrain rules that no one uses most the time AND they dont use them the correct way.

So there are a few things no one does for some reason, but remember basic terrain rules are "if the entire unit is on or within" note this is not the same as wholly within, this is the first thing most dont play with. The second are all the little terrain pieces and different pieces, like barricades, tank traps, rubble, etc.. those does change the game. Look at most tournament and local pictures of 8th tables, you dont see debris on the table.


When a table has good amounts of terrain and debris everything has a rule (and not ignore most the rules) its really different, when you 5 man squads are getting cover from a 1" high by 4" long wall in the middle of no where, well now with a +1 or +2 to save it gets harder to remove, a couple storm bolters from vehicles wont kill them now. Of if there are tank traps in front of ruins/buildings, now they cant go that directions, more even if there are a woods, etc..


We did a campaign not long ago that you HAD to use at least 6 different terrain types and at least 10 pieces, it was completely different and everyone loved it. When marines are not scared to run across the table from small arms, it made it more fun.