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Azuza001 wrote:
There are some interesting things here BUT this codex totally feels phoned in. Most of it is imperial knights just chaos, with a lot of the same strats and very few actual "chaos" things.

Given the vocal complains that GW often seems to get about chaos not getting all the stuff from the various loyalist books - damned if they do...

Forgeworld were the ones that released the actually daemonic knights though so there may be a second wave of unique chaos knight rules at some point.

Chaos would not compain about not getting the loyalist stuff if there would have been a decent "chaos" replacement.

Having just 2 "households" of chaos is a bit of a kick in the sheen, even if they are good-because it was so godamn EASY to make 4 "chaos god dedicated" Households, give each a relic (heck there are 4 god-themed relic already in the codex!) a warlord trait and a household ability. its not even going to need to be a great household ability as giving them a "chaos mark" as part of it opens them to cross-chaos monogod synergy.

Chaos gripes have always been that loyalist gets SO MUCH MORE, and most chaos things are an afterthought, being either a direct copy (who is often inferior, see CSM vs loyalist marine. exact same but ATSKNF) or having no counterpart at all.
You can't compare the chaos options to the sheer mass of loyalist options-its not a contest.
Heck, even the chaos knight's advantages over the loyalists came directly from the consolidation of the imperial knights into a single datasheet that happened to open up new variations, rather than an actual new set of unique chaos patterns.
Just look at the new T.sons start collecting box to see the neglect. its the first to contain a name character in it, because GW didn't bother to give TS a single-pack generic HQ for a few years now, while marines get enough primaris lieutenants to make squads of them, then they piled two troops and called it a day. could have easily been prince+troop (either goats or preferably rubrics) and then some fancy extra like the enlightened-but nope. 2 troops and a named HQ. FFS the various goats (and princes) are not even listed under TS in GW's own site, because TS are THAT much of an afterthought they never bothered listing their units properly.
Just to grasp the difference in sacel of options-the primaris set of options alone is now about as big the TS codex, including the cheap CSM vehicle imports and such. (and the fact that the TS codex was so poorly invested that 2 of its 3 troops are not even effected by its "legion tactics.", nor are the helbrutes effected in the slightest way. heck even somehow they managed to give the legion serving the "god of magic" some of the worst spells in the game.)

Chaos releases just too often feel like an uninspired afterthought rather than a true labor of love.

I can agree with most of that post, but complaining that Thousand Sons got "some of the worst spells in the game," when they got every psychic power for Tzeentch Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, AND their own unique discipline seems questionable.

Sokhar wrote:
I can agree with most of that post, but complaining that Thousand Sons got "some of the worst spells in the game," when they got every psychic power for Tzeentch Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, AND their own unique discipline seems questionable.

But their discipline isn't very good due to the high WC cost. And while they have access to units that can take other disciplines, its not their main TS units or sorc HQs who can.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Sokhar wrote:
I can agree with most of that post, but complaining that Thousand Sons got "some of the worst spells in the game," when they got every psychic power for Tzeentch Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, AND their own unique discipline seems questionable.

But their discipline isn't very good due to the high WC cost. And while they have access to units that can take other disciplines, its not their main TS units or sorc HQs who can.

TSons have the best psychic phase in the game. If you want to complain about poor psychic armies look at grey knights. 1 damage smite and 6 piss poor powers. Also brotherhood of sorcerers makes their smite much more reliable and means they can outrange all other psykers.

 small_gods wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Sokhar wrote:
I can agree with most of that post, but complaining that Thousand Sons got "some of the worst spells in the game," when they got every psychic power for Tzeentch Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, AND their own unique discipline seems questionable.

But their discipline isn't very good due to the high WC cost. And while they have access to units that can take other disciplines, its not their main TS units or sorc HQs who can.

TSons have the best psychic phase in the game. If you want to complain about poor psychic armies look at grey knights. 1 damage smite and 6 piss poor powers. Also brotherhood of sorcerers makes their smite much more reliable and means they can outrange all other psykers.

They have a good psychic phase because of their casters, not because of their powers. And yes we all know GK has gotten shafted. But we should probably get back on topic about Knights.

Yup, TS spam smite, not using actual TS spells. 3 of them are strictly weaker than spells in other armies AFTER you apply the "TS legion tactics", one is the witchfire that has the lowest expected output of all with no extra effect, one is the only WC9 in the game for an effect barly worth WC7, and the last is a meme table.
Practically any psyker discipline is better than the TS one except renegades. I can't think of the top of my head of a single disciple I won't switch to if offered the chance.


Anyways, let's get back to topic.
Anyone has more cool ideas if chaos knight builds?

I plan on building a double thermal cannon knight with a forge theme, smoke chimneys, fire, etc. Hopefully it translates to something remotely ok on the tabletop! 2d6 tankbuster shots should do the trick.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Sokhar wrote:
I can agree with most of that post, but complaining that Thousand Sons got "some of the worst spells in the game," when they got every psychic power for Tzeentch Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, AND their own unique discipline seems questionable.

But their discipline isn't very good due to the high WC cost. And while they have access to units that can take other disciplines, its not their main TS units or sorc HQs who can.

Just see the following spells: Glamour of Tzeentch (WC7), Weaver of Fate (WC6), Temporary Manipulation (WC6). I think these are very great psychic powers with decently low WC. Aren't they?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vaklor4 wrote:
I plan on building a double thermal cannon knight with a forge theme, smoke chimneys, fire, etc. Hopefully it translates to something remotely ok on the tabletop! 2d6 tankbuster shots should do the trick.

From what I see up to now, about the WLT, Relic and stratagem. I think Chaos Knight are more focused on getting close and chop everything into pieces. So maybe try load three Knights up in Gallant style and rush up?

Err, we should get back on topic. No point arguing about Tzeentch discipline on a chaos knight thread. Is it me or is Iconoclast already pigeonholed into melee type knights while Infernal household knights are shooty because of that Demonsurge?

I suppose Iconoclast can also go shooty, while using their household trait as a surprise tactics. Its just that the +1 attack is so much better on melee knights like Rampagers, while demonic surge is great for shooty knights.

Anyone has good ideas of using a Tyrant (Valiant)? I love the confrag cannon, but its relatively short ranged. Was wondering if the new chaos knight codex might now make the Tyrant (valiant) viable now.

Oddly enough though, if you want a permanent 4++ Tyrant (Castellan), it has to be Iconoclast, because the 4++ relic is an Iconoclast only relic...

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Err, we should get back on topic. No point arguing about Tzeentch discipline on a chaos knight thread. Is it me or is Iconoclast already pigeonholed into melee type knights while Infernal household knights are shooty because of that Demonsurge?

I suppose Iconoclast can also go shooty, while using their household trait as a surprise tactics. Its just that the +1 attack is so much better on melee knights like Rampagers, while demonic surge is great for shooty knights.

Anyone has good ideas of using a Tyrant (Valiant)? I love the confrag cannon, but its relatively short ranged. Was wondering if the new chaos knight codex might now make the Tyrant (valiant) viable now.

Oddly enough though, if you want a permanent 4++ Tyrant (Castellan), it has to be Iconoclast, because the 4++ relic is an Iconoclast only relic...

I think if you give him the vow of dominance, the psychic warlord trait and the 4++ relic he will be much more viable and genuinely difficult to take down for most armies.

Iconoclast is definatly choppy, but infernal is actually quite versatile and can be either shooty, choppy or sprinty. He won't out-chop iconoclast, but the ability to choose on the fly is valuable, and synergies best with hybrid Knights.

Just looking at the potential (and obviously overkill) ammount of damage an iconoclast Knight Rampager with relic fist and extra attack warlord trait can do. Even without stratergems like titan duel and vow of carnage, it can pretty reliably do 50ish damage to knight with no save if you rack up some kills with vow of carnage (not too hard with at least 21 -3 ap stomps hitting in 2+) or get some extra with titan duel, you can easily kill 2 castellans in one combat with no chance of them saving themselves unless you roll double 1s a few times!

 small_gods wrote:
Just looking at the potential (and obviously overkill) ammount of damage an iconoclast Knight Rampager with relic fist and extra attack warlord trait can do. Even without stratergems like titan duel and vow of carnage, it can pretty reliably do 50ish damage to knight with no save if you rack up some kills with vow of carnage (not too hard with at least 21 -3 ap stomps hitting in 2+) or get some extra with titan duel, you can easily kill 2 castellans in one combat with no chance of them saving themselves unless you roll double 1s a few times!

What's the Relic Fist do?

Reroll hits and wounds, no minus to hit, same x2 str, -4 ap, 6 dmg. One extra strength and attack if you kill a character.

One of the nice things I noticed with the new codex is that all the relics/traits/stratagems etc that give re-roll to hits give re-roll to hits not re-roll misses. So are much better against negative hit modifiers. Even Skyreaper protocols (which in the imperial knights codex is re-roll misses) is now re-roll hits (oh and trail of destruction).

Mushkilla-that's a very good spot. I did not notice that at all.


As for the fist, I think it has a slight issue of being a good relic in a pile of great relics, and as such may not be as attractive.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Mushkilla-that's a very good spot. I did not notice that at all.


As for the fist, I think it has a slight issue of being a good relic in a pile of great relics, and as such may not be as attractive.

It is mainly a case of overkill, you can kill most things you need without it and more likely the Khornate Target will be better in most cases.... but the beautiful thing is that you can choose what artifacts you take when you see what you're playing. So I'd take the fist for the knight vs knight matchup and maybe some armoured imperial guard list but not much else.

Yeah, but that fist can do some serious work. Its garunteed kills vs armored targets without invulnerable in cc, so anything other than a smash captain like chr. Even then it should still do some serious dmg, only 2 need to go through to kill almost any chr. And if someone does survive you death grip them to finish them off.

Its not a bad way to spend 350 pts...

One issue though is that smash captains are still around. And now even chaos has them. No matter how you deck out your knight, if he gets charged by a smash captain willing to blow the CP required to kill your knight, there's still a very high chance that knight is going down. (Even if its a Rampager).

He blows some CP plus maybe a smash captain which cost slightly over 100 points to down the Rampager which is 300 over points. Its a good trade. (Or if its a 1 for 1 trade with a Tyrant, then even better).

Take 30 cultists. Surround your knight tyrant (castallian) with them. Pop the 5++ strat. Profit. Smash captains dont want to charge the chaff, but if you completly surround the base so they cant physically fit then they cant charge the knight. Hopefully this buys you the single turn you need to domonic missile guidence them and kill the smash captain. Thats my plan anyways, just simple proper screening.

The good thing is you can make the knight always attack first with the Slaanesh relic. Additionally, with the right vow strategem unmodified 1,2, and 3s always fail to wound. This makes the blood angels chapter trait useless and it is hard for that smash captain to actually kill a knight.

broxus wrote:
The good thing is you can make the knight always attack first with the Slaanesh relic. Additionally, with the right vow strategem unmodified 1,2, and 3s always fail to wound. This makes the blood angels chapter trait useless and it is hard for that smash captain to actually kill a knight.

Always Fight First won't override if they get the charge. They'll still get to activate first.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

broxus wrote:
The good thing is you can make the knight always attack first with the Slaanesh relic. Additionally, with the right vow strategem unmodified 1,2, and 3s always fail to wound. This makes the blood angels chapter trait useless and it is hard for that smash captain to actually kill a knight.

Always Fight First won't override if they get the charge. They'll still get to activate first.

Unless you have a death guard foul blightspawn nearby =)

Yeah blightspawn are a great counter there. The gem from daemons is another handy counter.

I've worked out what the subtle difference between trail of destruction and break the enemy. At first I didn't see the point in break the enemy as I read it as just another way of getting re-rolls in close combat... But it affects multiple knights.

...Select an enemy within 1" of an iconoclast model from your army that performed a charge move that turn. Until the end of that phase, when resolving an attack made by an iconoclast model from your army ...

The key part is in bold. It affects multiple knights. So you charge a large unit with multiple knights you can give them all re-rolls to hits against the same target.

There a similar subtlety with Daemonic rift (auto perils on all powers within 12"). It affects all infernal knights. So it's not just a 12" bubble around one knight, but around all knights.

This codex, despite being smaller than the imperial version seems a lot more thought out. It really feels like less is more in this case. There are a lot less duds in this book, and the rules layer more, personally I'm really happy with it.

Wait... 12" auto perils around every infernal knight?

As if my TS don't have enough hard counters out there already XD.



Break the enemy makes me confused. It's so good for war dogs, but war did want to be infernal...

The auto perils are even stronger when combine with the Daemon stratagem that makes perils do 2d3 mortal wounds.

 Mushkilla wrote:
Yeah blightspawn are a great counter there. The gem from daemons is another handy counter.

I've worked out what the subtle difference between trail of destruction and break the enemy. At first I didn't see the point in break the enemy as I read it as just another way of getting re-rolls in close combat... But it affects multiple knights.

...Select an enemy within 1" of an iconoclast model from your army that performed a charge move that turn. Until the end of that phase, when resolving an attack made by an iconoclast model from your army ...

The key part is in bold. It affects multiple knights. So you charge a large unit with multiple knights you can give them all re-rolls to hits against the same target.

There a similar subtlety with Daemonic rift (auto perils on all powers within 12"). It affects all infernal knights. So it's not just a 12" bubble around one knight, but around all knights.

This codex, despite being smaller than the imperial version seems a lot more thought out. It really feels like less is more in this case. There are a lot less duds in this book, and the rules layer more, personally I'm really happy with it.

Good spot, that makes killing off that big unit of plaguebearers much easier, especially with reroll hit rolls rather than misses.

I too think they've thought about how the knights will interact with lots of lists so now they've got a fair ammount of good options and only a few duff ones. Whereas if you look at the csm book, 50% of stratergems and artifacts are generally not worth thinking about.

Knights are best when they can shoot then charge. Iconoclast don't really lose out if they work on shooting because titanic feet are so good against most things. Even with my Krast Crusaders I'm just about always trying to move into melee. Then fall back, shoot, repeat for double the damage.

One build that was suggested in one of the review videos I've seen is a double-Avenger Gatling Cannon knight with Vow of Carnage. Apparently the Vow counts destroyed models, not models destroyed in melee. So by the time you get ready for melee you're up an attack or two.

Dreadblades seem like they are a lot better than Freeblades for IK. They get to keep the household trait, and their relic is pretty awesome. You could choose one advantage with the relic, then roll randomly to get two more that don't matter as much.

One question I have is that if you ignore doubles when you roll randomly, do you roll before or after taking the relic into account?

I actually don't think too highly on the dreadblade relic.

5++ in melee is nice, but the added pact and damnation...is irksome.
KoPS is probably the best pact, and you only want one knight with it anyway due to CP generation limits, and Path to Glory is nice, but you do not lack hit rerolls. The rest of the pacts are not too amazing.
As for damnations, piling 3 damnations that won't outright cripple you when you fail the check is HARD. unless you are pure melee and then some are not very harmful.

And then you got the opportunity costs of not getting the relic that lets you ignore enemy invuls, the 4+MW whenever someone tried to punch you,
+change/advance and AFA, ignoring modifiers on shooting, even more Ld to make your dreadblade fail less coupled with extra CP, and three very good weapons.
There re too many relics to choose from.


I also suspect the double-gata is going to drop out of favor.
Yes, its good firepower. but it lacks synrgy-and the stratagems, traits, etc push quite hard into either outright melee, or hybrid types. even if shooty, you likely want two different guns to enjoy the options with the demonic surge.