Faction Focus: Chaos Knights

Chaos Knights were a favorite of many of the people I follow in the Warhammer Community.  Their Harbinger abilities are one of the most fun and fluffy mechanics of 9th Edition.  But Dread Tests were likely a test bed for the new Morale mechanics.  Now that Morale has changed, I'm curious to see what GW has in store for the biggest and stompiest Chaos boys.

HARBINGERS OF DREAD

So Harbingers has been reduced to two rules that stack on each other, one active at the beginning of the battle, the other coming in on Battle Round 3.  Both interact with Leadership and Battle-shock.  I'm noting that the Despair aura affects "Battle-shock or Leadership tests."  This likely means your units will still have Dread abilities that interact directly with Leadership and not just Battle-shock.  Let's see if they show us any.

FORGED IN TERROR

This rule doesn't provide any further benefit from your opponent being Battle-shocked, but it does make it happen more frequently.  Note that the aura range is identical to Despair.  So as long as you have a model with 12" of a damaged enemy unit, that unit will have to test Battle-shock in the Command Phase at -1 to the roll.

How big of a deal this is will depend on how effective Battle-shock proves as a strategy, and how many other rules your Knights have to benefit from it.  I do find it interesting though, that this rule kind of encourages you to split fire and "share the love" to get the most benefit from it.

KNIGHT DESPOILER

Hey, it's a full unit card!  The Despoiler starts with two melee weapons for its arms, and you can upgrade each with one of three cannons.  We'll need to see what the point costs are as first, but it's nice to see more customization options.

If this is matching their Imperial counterparts at all, it looks like I was right about Knights being Ld 6+.  I note the rest of the stats mirror Canus Rex pretty closely.  The Daemonbreath Thermal Cannon gives us a Melta 6 weapon, meaning this thing will destroy most armor.  The Despoiler Battle Cannon is another Rapid Fire Battle Cannon.  Other than those two, this bad boy has a lot of options for dealing with infantry.

Both the Claw and the Chainsword have dual profiles.  And since we know that you only get to fight with one, you'll probably only keep one of these.  I find it interesting the Claw trades a pip of AP for better strength and damage.  It's weird because they clearly want you to see the Chainsword as being better at dealing with infantry, but it's also better against Vehicle armor.  The higher strength and damage on the claw probably still sets it up as the better vehicle killer.  I would probably set this bad boy up with the Thermal Cannon for big targets, with the Chainsword and some lesser guns for taking out infantry.

The Dread Dominion ability obviously represents underlings being more scared of this thing than anything the enemy has.  I do find it funny though that GW talked a lot about how Imperial Knights buff each other while not showing us a single rule.  Now the first Chaos Knight we see buffs Wardogs.  We also get another of those "re-roll one Hit roll or one Wound roll" rules.  

As a quick side note, the article reveals that Imperial Knight Bondsman abilities will all be targeted buffs that benefit both units, while Chaos Knight abilities will be one way auras.

KNIGHT ABOMINANT

Oh boy, we get the Abominant too!

The first thing I note is that unlike other Psychers we've seen, the Abominant doesn't seem to have a direct damage power.  Not that the Volkite Combustor isn't capable of dealing damage, though strangely is AP 0.  Now I'm trying to think if we've seen other Volkite weapons.  All and all this is a serious damage downgrade from the Despoiler.  But that's not why you're taking it.

Our first ability, Vortex of Terrors, forces a Battle-shock test on a unit.  Again, this is the same range as Despair, so that test will always be at -1.  Warp Storms is our first Psychic ability to bring back reliable mortal wound damage.  I'm also noting that there's no chance of failure on either of these.  You just get to bully the enemy with your Psychic powers automatically.

DESECRATOR LASER DESTRUCTOR

I won't lie, it's hard to get excited about a knight weapon that isn't the Thundercoil.  That being said, this is still a versatile and powerful weapon.  Three attacks at BS 2+ means you're reliably gunning down anything at Rhino size or lower, and probably doing serious damage to most other targets.

This is odd though.  We've already seen the Warpstrike Claw on the profile for the Despoiler.  Why is this in the Weapon Spotlight?  Yeah, it's a big, high strength, high damage melee weapon.  It's also not as good at dealing with armor.  Though I suppose that's not a bad thing if you're facing a lot of invulns.

DREAD HOUNDS

Oh this is gravy!  Now we get to see another rule putting Battle-shock to more effect.  First, you get to select "Two or more War Dogs."  Two or more!  That means for 1 CP you can theoretically have every War Dog in your army getting this Stratagem!  The odds you'll be able to attack the same unit with all your War Dogs is low, but if your opponent is doing something like the Chaos Terminator bricks we saw last edition, you can just target it down and annihilate it.

And providing you're able to reliably inflict Battle-shock (note that Vortex of Terrors triggers at the start of your Shooting phase) those War Dogs are getting Sustained Hits and any other weapon rules on a 5+.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While there isn't anything as awe inspiring as we've had in some other Faction Focuses, this is still a potent reveal.  Providing you can stack up ways to inflict Battle-shock and benefits from doing so, this army will potentially be as terrifying on the table as it is in the lore.