How to Play Imperial Knights in 10th Edition 40k: Rules Guide

By Travis Pasch | May 1st, 2024 | Categories: 10th Edition 40k, 40k News & Articles, How To Play 40k, Imperial Knights, Tabletop Gaming News & Rumors

New 10th Edition 40k Imperial Knights are here – from Stratagems, Datasheets, and army rules; here is our review guide on how to play them.

Exciting changes to the Imperial Knights army’s gameplay, rules, and style are here with the release of their new Warhammer 40k index cards. This review guide provides an overview of the new index cards, including Stratagems, Datasheets, and army rules, to help players understand how to play Imperial Knights in 10th Edition Warhammer 40k. Additionally, we’ll take a closer look at the new rules, giving you everything you need to dominate the battlefield. Get ready to unleash the power of the Imperium and conquer your enemies with these giant machines!

Contents

How to Play Imperial Knights in 10th Edition 40k: Rules Guide

The new 10th Edition Imperial Knights rules come from Warhammer Community.

As well as their massive weapons, Imperial Knights are known for their unflagging duty and honour. All knights follow a stringent set of rules known as the Code Chivalric, which governs notions of fair play and bravery, even in the nightmare conflicts of the Era Indomitus.

An Oath chosen before battle is joined provides both a powerful, persistent ability and an associated Deed to complete. Success grants a sizeable bounty of all-important Command points to spend, as well as interacting with many other Imperial Knights rules and Stratagems.

Not only do you get a buff just for picking an Oath, but if you succeed, you gain 3 Command Points! So you better follow your oath. Re-rolling on such big models is excellent, and with your opponent’s warlord already dead, this ability should help finish them off.

However, adding charge rolls and advance rolls to your move is super beneficial. Hopefully, this deed is easier to achieve (depending on your army), considering a Knight’s OC is so high.

Chainbreaker Lance

Imperial Knights Indomitable Heroes Detachment Rules

The Noble Lance Detachment makes extra use of Honoured status by improving the Feel No Pain rule it imparts, rising to a fantastic 5+.

With this in mind, you want to finish your deed as fast as possible because a 5+FNP for your whole army is really strong.

New 10th Edition Warhammer 40k Imperial Knights Datasheets

Armigers are the closest thing Imperial Knights have to line troops, and a much-welcome upgrade to Toughness accompanies a generous Objective Control characteristic of 8, making sure they can hold ground just as well as other armies – at least, once a few foes have met their fate at the end of a reaper chain-cleaver.

With more Toughness and an OC of 8, these should be able to run up and grab those objectives quickly. It only makes sense something this big has a good OC score; how are puny troops meant to compete?

The Thermal Spear has Melta 4, meaning it will do d6+4 damage at half range, and with -4AP, it should be able to take out tanks. They are decent in melee, but with only one damage on the sweep attacks, they might have difficulty taking down multi-wound infantry without resorting to the Strike attack.

The legend of the Chainbreaker continues as Canis Rex makes a sizeable fist-shaped impression in anything foolish enough to get in his way. Freedom’s Hand is a mighty everything-masher of the highest order, able to knock 45 damage into something big or delete entire squads of elite troops with a contemptuous wave.

And in case you’re wondering, Sir Hekhtur can still jog around after his noble steed falls – his datasheet is on the back of the Canis Rex card.

With 22 Wounds, this is quite hard to bring down, but he only has a 5+ invulnerable save, and with some of the increased weapon strength we’ve seen, you’ll want to get that 5+ FNP fast. The new Knight ranged weapons are pretty strong and have plenty of options for killing either infantry or tanks.

In combat, though, he can get five Strength 20 attacks hitting on a 2+ with -4 AP and Damage 9! On average, you’re probably hitting with the majority of attacks and wounding with 3-4 of them, meaning a total of 27-36 damage.

New Weapon Rules

Anyone who’s piloted a Knight Valiant knows that this big spiky beast was absolutely glorious on the off-chance it got close enough to actually fire, and its track record of being a hyper-intimidating if impractical threat continues with imposing statistics. Look on my harpoon, ye Vehicles, and despair.

While this only has one attack, at BS 2+, Strength 24 (wounding almost everything we’ve seen so far on a 2+), -6 AP, and 12 Damage, this can very well take out most tanks in one shot!

On the more utilitarian end of the scale, the Knight Paladin’s rapid-fire battle cannon returns with – of all things – a fresh new Rapid Fire rule. It trades the wide variance of its old profile for a more consistent number of shots, with the new Blast rule still giving it some extra-spicy kick against larger hordes.

With both Blast and an insane Rapid Fire number, as long as you’re within 36″, this will get all the shots (an average of 13 before Blast).

New Imperial Knights Warhammer 40k Stratagems

The pursuit of glory can make a man do outrageous things, and pushing their iron steeds just a little bit further than is safe is par for the course for hard-pressed pilots. Knights live for the moment they can rise unbowed in their darkest hour, ready to Shoulder the Burden in pursuit of victory, and those already spurred by honourable deeds can even do so multiple times per battle.

This is honestly pretty insane, as not only do you get a ton of stats, but you also get better hit rolls. If you throw this on a big knight, it can really make a huge difference. However, you can only use it once or possibly twice a game, so be sure to use it at the right time!

This desire for glory is ever a gamble, however, as the need to claim noteworthy trophies can push a Knight beyond the bounds of reason. Should they succeed, their duel will be remembered for an age, but should they fail, dishonour will dog them until redemption can be won.

This is a great Strat to throw on a Knight when you want to take down a big model, as it not only helps you destroy it but also gives you a CP if you do manage this epic deed!

Stratagem Changes in the Dataslate

They got some big NERFS in the older Dataslate as things go up in CP cost, change to Epic Deed, and the Bondsman abilities get changed as well. However, with all the points dropped, they are doing well in the meta once again. GW basically reverted almost all the points to what they were before the first Dataslate.

Latest 40k Rules Updates For Imperial Knights:

The latest updates for Imperial Knights 10th Edition rules will be released in what Games Workshop calls a Balance Dataslate, sometimes along with accompanying points changes as well.

You can see all the latest Balance Dataslate updates here in our post, which breaks down the most recent changes.

How To Play Warhammer 40k Imperial Knights: Points

You can find the latest points for playing this faction in 10th Edition Warhammer 40k here on our Munitorum Field Manual Points Updates Page.

Imperial Knights YouTube Review:

Watch the video below for some more insights into the faction.

Is It Still Worth Playing Imperial Knights?

Do you like giant robots smashing through puny enemies? If you answered yes, then the Knights are for you! While the recent NERFS have hurt their win rate, they aren’t doing terribly. They have some amazing models and are so much fun to hobby on.

We expect them to stay relevant in the meta for a while, and you only need to bring about 5-10 models to the table to play!

Updates, in general, for any game are just good business. That being said, it also seems like in 2023-2024, GW will have its hands full trying actually to get out all these codexes.

However, Imperial Knights aren’t even on the list, meaning you will have to use the index for a while, which gives you plenty of time to learn the faction before the codex drops.

The new 10th Edition Imperial Knights Stratagems, Datasheets, and army rules have brought exciting changes to the gameplay and style of the army. With the index rules, players can unleash the power of the Imperium and dominate the battlefield with these giant machines.