Breaking Down List Building for 9th Edition Chaos Knights

This is another article aimed for newer or less experienced Knights players. If you’d like to check out the Stratagems article, you can find that here.

List building for Knights is unusual in that we ignore every kind of detachment bar 2. (yes I know, we can soup in Daemon detachments and Abaddon in a Supreme Command, we’re not talking about that today).The only ones we look at seriously for the baseline faction are Super-Heavy Detachments and Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachments.

Super-Heavy Detachment, 3CP (6 if this Detachment includes a TITANIC model).

This detachment must contain at least three LORD OF WAR units and cannot contain more than five.

Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment, 3 CP

This detachment may only contain one LORD OF WAR unit. Additionally, Super-Heavy Auxiliary detachments usually prevent models from using special house rules (more on this in a second, Knights get an exception).

But Wait, There’s More….

From there, things take a complicated turn. The 9th edition Chaos Knights Codex has a lot of rules about how armies are built, and they aren’t all in the same place. Let’s start with the simplest rules.

All Chaos Knight Detachments Get:

• Traitoris Lance

This rule does a couple of things. First, if you are playing a Super-Heavy Detachment (or a Combat Patrol battle where you have to play a Super-Heavy Auxiliary only), one Abhorrent, Tyrant, or War Dog model becomes a character.

Second, it spells out the CP refunds for the detachment. If you bring only 1 or 2 Titanic Knights the CP refund is only +3, making the Super-Heavy cost 3 CP net. If you only bring 3 to 5 War Dog models, the same thing happens. If you want the full 6 CP refund to include Titanic models, you must play either 3 or more Abhorrent Knights OR 6 or more War Dogs alongside at least one Titanic Knight.

This is absolutely designed to prevent you from spamming only War Dogs (if you play more than 5 without a big knight your refund is 0) and to disincentivize playing a Tyrant with other Titanic Knights or for including any Cerastus or Acastus Knights in your list at all.

• Fallen Hero

This makes a Super-Heavy Auxiliary detachment that only contains a Dreadblade unit gain the Agent of Chaos keyword, which allows other Chaos armies to bring it without disrupting special army rules that require every model to be part of the same faction/have the same keyword such as Contagions of Nurgle, Cabbalistic Rituals, Warpstorms etc.

• Towering Foe

War Dogs with this rule count as 5 models for controlling objectives, and Titanic Knights count as 10.

• War Dogs gain Objective Secured.

Note that this applies to even Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachments even though they wouldn’t normally get detachment rules(Chaos Knights codex, pg. 55)

Specific Requirements Must be Met For the Following Rules:

• Traitoris Ambitions

Traitoris Ambitions are the benefit models receive for playing Infernal or Iconoclast Houses. These are powerful, faction defining rules, and the Codex does a bad job of explaining exactly how these are gained.

Specifically, every single model in the Detachment must have either the Infernal or Iconoclast keyword to get access to these, which means that Dreadblades are significantly less flexible than it looks like they should be assuming you want access to the Iconoclast (+1 attack and AP) or Infernal (Daemonic Surges) bonuses.

For completeness sake, if you want to play an Iconoclast House and have a Dreadblade in the same detachment and keep the extra attack and AP, your Dreadblade can only have the following Fell Bonds: Bold Tyrants, Frenzied Invaders, Learned Idolators, Loping Predaotrs, Precision Cruelty, Prideful Wrath, Worthy Offerings.

If you want to play an Infernal House and have a Dreadblade in the same detachment and keep the Daemonic Surges, you can only have the following Fell Bonds: Dark Forging, Mericless Tormentors, Gheists of Ruin, Hellforged Construction, Biomechanical Fusion, Unhallowed Inscriptions, Warp Vision.

• Household Bonds

Household bonds are the “sub faction” benefits that each of the Chaos Knight houses give out. In order to have a Household Bond – or a custom household using a Fell Bond – you have to have at least 3 models in your detachment that are not dreadblade models.

This means that if you want to take a Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment and keep the same household as your main detachment AND retain the Household benefit, you must bring at least three models in that Detachment. This effectively makes Super-Heavy Auxiliaries the domain of War Dogs for Knight factions unless you plan to bring a Dreadblade Titanic model.

Dreadblades

Dreadblades are the way in which Chaos Knights can customize how their models function. In theory, they can have any Fell Bond (that nothing in your army already has) and can be put in either Super-Heavy or Super-Heavy Auxiliary detachments. In practice this is a little bit more restrictive than the codex would make it appear on first glance. Dreadblades never benefit from the Iconoclast Conquerer’s Without Mercy rule and can only gain Daemonic Surges if they take a specific Fell Bond.

• Fell Bonds for Dreadblades

Fell Bonds are the Dreadblade “house”, and each Dreadblade must have one. There are a couple of the Fell Bonds that Dreadblades are not allowed to take at all. These are Infamous Heredity and Bound Vassals, and they let you mimic an official house for the purposes of making your Knight Lance your own while still using the official house rules.

Dreadblades are theoretically able to take any of the other Fell Bonds and operate just fine. In reality, the restriction on needing all models in a Detachment to share either”Infernal” or “Iconoclast” means that a Dreadblade in the same detachment as models in a house need to pick the same kind of Fell Bond to match.

One of the advantages of the Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment is that it lets you choose something from the other side of the faction to make a Dreadblade carry if you so choose, be it a Karnivore with Frenzied Invaders complementing a Vextrix “all the guns” list, or a trio of Warp Vision Executioners to help deal with tanky Terminators chilling on cover.

• Favours of the Dark Gods, Relics, and Traits

Dreadblades can be given any Favour, Relic, or Warlord Trait they are eligible to receive. We’ll talk more about these below.

Favours of the Dark Gods

Favours of the Dark Gods are incredibly customizable options for changing the role of a particular Chaos Knight model on the table. These powerful bonuses are paid for with points during list construction, and are limted to one per unit. This means that if you bring a unit of War Dogs with more than one member, only one of the War Dog receives the Favour.

Favours have a baseline bonus that the unit receives, and a secondary (usually stronger effect) that is unlocked once the model bearing the Favour kills a certain amount of enemy models. Note that you get to count all of the wounds that the model you destroyed originally had each time you kill something, even if the model only did a single wound to finish it off.

For a War Dog, Favours unlock after killing 5 wounds worth of enemy models.

• Example: 2 Terminators (3 +3 = 6), 3 Marines (2+2+2=6), 5 Cultists (1+1+1+1+1=5), etc.

Abhorrents unlock theirs after killing 10 wounds of enemy models, and Tyrants unlock theirs after killing 15 wounds worth of enemy models.

Note: there is no way for a Cerastus or Acastus Knight to unlock their favour with current rulings (November, 2022), but if you are a newer Chaos Knight player, consider staying far away from Forgeworld anyway.

One last thing: Favours unlock at the end of the phase in which you kill enough things, so do not count on a defensive Favour to unlock after you charge something but before the remaining members of the squad hit you back – it doesn’t work like that.

Warlord Traits and Relics:

Chaos Knights are a little strange, in that we have to choose a model to be a CHARACTER model during list construction. That model then gets to be our WARLORD.

If you are playing with open play rules, you can give your Warlord a free relic and trait from the Chaos Knights codex. Many of these require you to put them on specifically a War Dog or an Aborrent model, so pay attention before you attempt to assign them. More rarely, some of them are locked to Infernal or Iconoclast houses only. Each official house also has a Warlord Trait and Relic that can be taken if your army uses that house.

As of this writing, Nephilim Matched Play Rules require to use a Stratagem during list building to add a Warlord Trait or Relic to a model.

Chaos Knights also have a stratagem for adding additional Warlord Traits to models – Tyrannical Court – and one for Relics – Corrupted Heirlooms. These cost a CP each and can be used once for smaller games and twice for larger ones.

Finally, your Warlord can take a second Warlord Trait with the Arch Tyrant Stratagem.

Building a Sample List

Our first list will be a 1000 point list. At this point level, it is literally impossible to both field a Titanic Knight and take any interesting relics or warlord traits as the Super-Heavy Detachment will cost 3 CP (6 cost, 3 CP refund).

1000 points is easily enough for six War Dogs though, and I’m going to show a trick to get the 3 CP refund even though we technically go over the 5 War Dog max threshold.

I’m going to start by choosing two Karnivores for up close fighting, two Stalkers for a nice blend of melee and guns, and then a Brigand for pure shooting and an Executioner for consistent ranged damage. I’m putting Heavy Stubbers on all of them because they’re cheaper (and I think they’re better, but that’s another article).

These will go into two Detachments like this:

Super-Heavy Detachment (0 CP cost due to 3 CP refund)
– Karnivore
– Karnivore
– Stalker with Daemonbreath Spear and Reaper Chaintalon
– Stalker with Daemonbreath Spear and Reaper Chaintalon
– Brigand

Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment (0 CP cost due to same faction refund)
– Executioner

Once I’ve done that, I have to choose a house for them, and decide if any should be Dreadblades. If you are breand new to the faction, I highly recommend playing all one house so you do not have to remember multiple bonuses, but if you are a little more experienced I’ve got some thoughts on how to do that in the more advanced list.

For new players, I always recommend Iconoclast houses, and it’s hard to go wrong with House Herpetrax for the extra wounds. That said, there are many great Houses and Fell Bonds, and I’m going to be writing an article about them all soon. Do Note: the Executioner will not get the extra wounds because there are not 3 models in the detachment – a small price to pay for the extra CP we get out of putting it there.

For the more advanced list, I’m going to make the Brigand a Dreadblade with the Worthy Offerings Fell Bond (makes it better at killing characters and vehicles) and I’m going to make the Executioner a Dreadblade as well with the Precision Cruelty Fell Bond (makes it synergize really nicely with the Favour we’re going to give it).

Next, we’re going to pick a Warlord and give it a single Relic. The majority of the Warlord traits are bad or unusable on War Dogs, and the Relics are extremely limited as well.

In this instance, we’ll select a Karnivore as the Warlord and give it the Helm of Dogs. This powerful relic makes the bearer get an extra attack and provides a 6″ aura of re-rolling wound rolls of 1.

With 120 points for Favours, I’m going to recommend putting Beguiling Majesty on the Warlord to make it harder to kill in melee (100 points left), Mirror of Fate on the Executioner (the auto sixing of a wound roll combines realy well with the Precision Cruelty Fell Bond (85 points left), Blood Shield on the other Karnivore to let it ignore Invulnerable saves with the very high AP Chaintalon (55 points left), Cursed Rune of Fate on a Stalker for a potential 4+ Invulnerable save later (40 points left), and Aura of Corruption on the second Stalker for many shenanigans. This leaves 15 points to put Subjugator Machine Spirit on the Brigand to potentially let it move around the table quickly as needed and shoot OR to fall back and shoot.

Let’s put it all together.

And there you go! A 1000 point Chaos Knight list chock full of nasty threats and tricks. If you are playing Nephilim Matched play rules you start with 2 CP, and if you are using open play rules you start with (I believe) 6.

Chaos Knight list building is deep, highly customizable, and extremely rewarding. It’s also opaque and intimidating with lots of specific language used to build lists and make them function properly within the rules. Hopefully this guide was a useful place to get your legs under you, or refresh for games after a few months off.

A Quick Summary:

If you want a full CP refund for your Super Heavy Detachment, you must bring no more than 5 War Dogs OR 6+ War Dogs and a Titanic model OR 3+ Abhorrent Class models.

To get access to the Iconoclast and Infernal Specific bonuses, you must play only Infernal or Iconoclast models in a detachment, including the Dreadblades.

If you want to get house/fell bond bonuses without being a Dreadblade, at least three models in that detachment must be the same house.

Dreadblades always get a Fell Bond, but they never get access to the Iconoclast bonus attack and AP or the Infernal Surges (aside from the specific Fell Bond that gives them back).

You may bring as many Dreadblades in your army as you wish, but in matched play you currently cannot bring a second House. Remember, at least three models in the detachment must be of your “main” house in order to get the house bonus.

Each unit can get one Favour, which means that you can bring a total of 5 Favours in a Super-Heavy Detachment and one in a Super-Heavy Auxiliary. Only one War Dog per unit is affected by the Favour.

Chaos Knights can bring a Relic and Warlord Trait with either core rules or Nephilim specific rules, and then have stratagems that can bring up to two more relics on other units at 2000 points, (Corrupted Heirlooms) up to two more traits on other units at 2000 points (Tyrannical Court), and an extra trait on your Warlord (Arch Tyrant).

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