Chaos Knights are a well balanced faction with a multitude of interesting options. This article aims to help readers buy in with the minimal number of purchases for the most variety of competitive builds at 2000 points.
Honorable Mention:
If you can find the Chaos Knight army box, nab that. With a codex, a kit that builds the three main Chaos Knight chassis, and two War Dogs that can be any of the new Pterrorshades models (read: Anything that isn’t a Moirax or Executioner), this box is the best way to start the faction.
High Value:
With just the right amount of high value purchases, a player can make an excellent Chaos Knight force. 2000 points is easily made from two Titanic Kits and four War Dog Boxes.
Abominant/Desecrator/Rampager Box (1 to 2 kits):
Most players are going to want one to two of these kits. The Abominant and Desecrator are rapidly becoming the “go to” Titanic Knights, and most of the best lists at the moment play one Titanic and approximately 10 War Dogs or two Titanic and six to eight War Dogs.
Magnetizing this kit is fairly easy (guide for this coming soon), but if magnets are not an option I recommend the Abominant and the Desecrator as the two Titanic Knights to start off with.
War Dog Box (3 to 4 kits):
This box lets you build the Stalker, Karnivore, and Brigand loadout, as well as the Huntsmen without a melta if you wish – it’s basically a variant on the Stalker. This should be the majority of the Chaos Knight War Dog arsenal as each of these versions of the chassis are very strong. I’ve been using a lot of Stalkers personally in my lists, but I know others have been seeing good success with Brigands and Karnivores.
Mid Value:
These kits are nice to have once the base of a collection is already owned, but not crucial to playing the faction.
Armiger Box (1 kit):
The War Dog Executioner is an excellent piece in the Chaos Knight army, and I have been playing them over Brigands myself. Two should be sufficient, and the Armiger box has four autocannons inside of it to make two Executioners. It also brings two Melta carapace weapons which are nice to have for flexing the last 5-10 points of a list.
The option to take a Melta gun is one of the primary reasons to bring a Huntsman over a Stalker, and why I personally have a Huntsman unit in my current list.
Canis Rex Box (1 kit):
I’ve been repeatedly unimpressed with the Knight Despoiler, but I also tend to undervalue the infernal houses where I think this model shines. It’s worth owning all of the different weapons from the kit regardless, and it is not a bad pick up after establishing a broader collection.
Low Value/Avoid
These models are either actively bad or prohibitively expensive in either money or points compared to their performance.
Dominus Box (Knight Tyrant):
I would recommend owning at most one of these models, and breaking it out for fun games or if your specific meta is particularly weak to its brand of gameplay. I’ve got a meme list that has a deep striking Tyrant with flamer/harpoon that I want to try out at some point, but I don’t expect it to be good. I would not recommend getting a Tyrant unless you love the model or have already gotten everything else above it on this list.
Forgeworld Titanic Knights (all varieties):
Quick exception: the Magaera is still a very good offensive profile and not bad defensively. Not having access to Favours of the Dark Gods and not counting as an Abhorrent for some force organization requirements are both massive strikes against it though, and I’ve found myself regretting playing it when I have.
These models are all expensive money wise, expensive points wise, and cannot get Favours of the Dark Gods. They also don’t have the Abhorrent or Tyrant keywords, so they cannot access most of the Relics and some of the Stratagems. If GW ever adds these on, this category dramatically changes.
Forgeworld Moiraxes:
These models look very cool, but with the addition of the new War Dog boxes, most of the profiles have been severely outmoded. The Lightning locks are decent, but the new Gatling Cannon profile has as many shots, can get exploding sixes via a Stratagem, and also allows the option of a melee weapon – and you can get two War Dogs for basically the price of a single Moirax.
These are slightly better buys than the Titanic Knights because they have the relevant Keywords, but I would not buy them until after fleshing out a full collection of plastic kit War Dogs.
Conclusion:
Chaos Knights are in a great place as of this writing, with multiple competitive lists placing in the top 8 of events recently. Following this guide will help anyone break into the faction with the most efficient spending possible!
We’ll be back soon with an overview of competitive Knight builds to build on this piece.
As a specific aside, I’ve refrained from putting pictures of my own War Dogs in this post as they are nothing like stock models.
If you have any interest in making your own War Dogs look like my properly canine looking fellows (pictured to the right here), I would invite you to peruse the YouTube video I have made as a tutorial for this process.
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