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

By Travis Pasch | April 14th, 2024 | Categories: 10th Edition 40k, 40k News & Articles, Chaos Knights, Chaos Space Marines, How To Play 40k, Tabletop Gaming News & Rumors

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

Exciting changes to the Chaos 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 Chaos 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 Chaos and conquer your enemies with these giant machines!

Contents

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

The new Chaos Knights Warhammer 40k 10th Edition rules come from Warhammer Community.

Many factions have special ways to cause Battle-shock, but Chaos Knights take further advantage with a bonus to wound Battle-shocked units, and can even avoid return fire from them.

Not only will you be better at battle-shocking units, but you will wound them better and be harder to hit back! So, try to spread that fear around for some big bonuses.

Chaos Knight Abominant

Chaos Knights Traitoris Lance Detachment Rules

When formed into a Traitoris Lance Detachment, they can also force Battle-shock tests on nearby units as soon as they’ve taken damage, turning a single fallen model into a cascade failure under the fists and chainswords of blasphemous war machines Forged in Terror.

This is big as you cause tests just for having one casualty or suffered one wound, so that’s pretty huge and can really throw a wrench in your opponent’s plans. Also, keep in mind they will be -1 to the test, too, per the Despair aura!

New 10th Edition Warhammer 40k Chaos Knights Datasheets

Chaos Knights have always taken a freewheeling approach to their equipment selection, with the Knight Despoiler throwing off the shackles of rigid Imperial designations to equip whatever allows them to slaughter more chattel. The same is true in the new edition, and its Seething Hatred rule adds a touch of reliability to all weapon types.

The new Despoiler Knight has all kinds of weapon options, a ton of wounds, and an invulnerable save against ranged attacks. It has plenty of options to take out vehicles or infantry, and can even get strength 20 attacks in melee!

Maybe, more importantly, it buffs up your War Dogs battleshock test and gets to re-roll one hit and wound itself!

Perhaps the most horrifying of all Knight suits piloted by Fallen Nobles is the Knight Abominant, a towering psychic monstrosity that projects a tempest of empyric terror. Its psychic Vortex Terrors can throw an enemy unit straight into Battle-shock at the start of the Shooting phase – making them vulnerable to Harbingers of Dread – and tears its prey apart both with psychic squalls and scorching volkite energy, then follows up with a barrage of close combat attacks.

While this doesn’t have many options, it does get 12 attacks in melee and some okay shooting options. However, its psychic powers are pretty strong, with the ability to cause a ton of mortals and force enemies to take battle-shock tests!

Now that the failed battle-shock test is making the rest of your units better, it may be worth fielding one or more of the Abominant now!

New Weapon Rules

Where Imperial Knight households show some measure of caution and only mount their strongest laser weaponry to the massive Dominus-class Knights, Chaos Knights show no such restraint. The raw vehicle-punching power of the desecrator laser destructor is enough to turn loyalists green with envy… should any of them survive a potent Strength 18 beam of death.

With tons of strength, AP, and Damage, this should be able to easily take out enemy vehicles (not to mention hitting on a 2+).

Like many Knights , the Desecrator can also pack a warpstrike claw to maximise its damage against newly toughened vehicles. Battle tanks might now be packing a Toughness characteristic of 10 or higher, but against a Strength 20 fist with 8 damage per hit, they’ll still fold like paper.

The Warpstrike Claw is powerful whether you use the strike or sweep attack. At Strength 20 and 8 Damage, though, the strike should be able to take down almost anything it comes to grips with.

New Chaos Knights Warhammer 40k Stratagems

War Dogs are afforded little respect in Traitoris Lances – by their bigger masters, anyway. To everyone else, they’re still piloting a stompy war machine from out of a nightmare. These scout-grade Knights nip around the heels of their larger compatriots and hunt for scraps amidst the carnage. Like their namesakes, these Dread Hounds roam the battlefield in packs and gang up on their enemies to drag down larger prey.

If you really need to take out a single unit, this is super strong, considering you can do this with as many War Dogs as you want; just keep in mind that everything you nominate must shoot at that unit.

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.

Chaos Knights YouTube Review:

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

Is It Still Worth Playing Chaos Knights?

Yeah, absolutely; while, like a lot of the armies in 10th Edition, there are some issues, overall, they can still be competitive, have some fun interactions, and their models look amazing. If you want to put down some giant minis on the table and praise the Gods of Chaos, this can be a super fun army for both playing and hobbying.

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 to actually get out all these codexes.

However, Chaos Knights were pretty far into 9th Edition, meaning you might have to use the index for quite some time. With GW’s Dataslate updates and FAQs, they should be in a decent place for a while.

The new 10th Edition Chaos 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 Chaos and dominate the battlefield with these giant machines.