Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: What I Learned About Chaos Knights
Goatboy here again after a weekend kicking butt in Grapevine for the GW Grand Tournament. I used Chaos Knights and have some lessons to pass on.
I happened to win all my games and walked out with the big ole Gold Painted Resin Skull Goblet of Doom! It even has some crazy resin dice in it. Not too bad for someone who hasn’t gotten a game in since last May (Alamo GT took 3rd somehow its Maulerfiends). I had five good matches that weren’t ITC, so it was a very odd experience trying to figure out these Chapter Approved Missions.
The Missions
The Missions were interesting, and while I think some parts of them worked, there were some things I felt hurt the overall design. The power of picking who goes first was a bit too much. In fact, I messed up a few games when I lost the die roll and then just went first instead of reading the whole line I could decide not to go first. If you don’t know what I am talking about – you roll off to see who picks the deployment and side. Then the other player deploys first and gets to decide if they go first or second. This is crazy powerful as controlling who goes first can be extremely beneficial to armies designed to take an alpha strike in the face. Either way, I ended up being made to go first several times – but somehow survived.
Also, a ton of the missions pushed the power of the 2nd player getting points first. I had a few where the army had to plan for a turn 3 point gathering because I tried to limit the amount my point took ahold of and concentrated on removing the threats that could score. That is another thing – some missions only troops could score, which is an entirely different take on any mission. It is why my army went from full Knights and beat sticks to Knights and some friends.
The list was posted last week so you can check it out but let’s go into what I thought worked.
Winner Units
- Double Battle Cannon Despoiler Knight
- Double Thermal Cannon Despoiler Knight
- Iconoclast Ambition
These guys ran the table like the bosses they are. The Thermal Knight died first most games, but if he were left to his own, he would blow up powerful things with this 2d6 shot Lascannon. He is also crazy cheap, which makes me think this is probably the best one. After that it’s the Battle Cannon Knight as he could sit back, throw out damage, and usually come in at the end to sweep things up. He usually got the “no-modifier to hit with ranged weapons” Relic. One game he took the Vow that lets him get more attacks and stacked up to a +7 to his attacks by the end of the game. He helped kill 150 plague bearers one game, so it was pretty nutty. Oh, and the Iconoclast Ambition is friggin’ amazing. An extra attack on the charge or when charged is crazy as well as the -1 AP he generates. It is friggin nuts that you have a double gun gallant running around. I know people want the Infernal to work – but it feels like only assault Knight versions end up being better for it. The double guns do better as shoot and assault versions.
Trust me – he’s Psychic…
So-So Units
- Sorcerer on a Bike
- Double Gatling Cannon Knight
Both of these had their uses, but most of the time, they just either died quickly (Gatling) or hung around the middle holding an objective. I did get lucky with a few Death Hexes in a Daemon Match up, but overall the Sorceror smited a few things, perils a few times (didn’t die vs. daemon which only caused three wounds), and then got shot by a Riptide in the face. The Gatling Knight seems good on paper – but with cover, he only throws out -1 AP guns so he sometimes doesn’t kill things. I get the feeling the Infernal Version might be better just to get a Strength 7, three damage gun but I am not sure.
The Bad
- Chaos Space Marines
- Warpsmith
- Forgetting to make Knights Dreadblades
Man, I wish I had painted up a Master of Executions. He would at least have some play killing some stuff. The Warpsmith of Khorne seemed like it should do ok – but it just never got a chance to do anything. His Melta scratched a few Custdoes armor. The Chaos Space Marines just gave me 3 Command points and let me score during a mission. Beyond that, they didn’t do anything in the game. They died a lot to Vultures on the last game – and frustrated my opponent when I made something like 16 2+ saves while in cover.
The last thing is forgetting to use the Dreadblade Ability. I never really read it that much because I was too busy trying to keep some of the basic Knight stuff in my head. My buddy Matt spoke to me a bit more about it as we built out an ITC version of the army. There are two Dreadblade Pact abilities you can pick that could really warp a match up. Path to Glory to reroll hits versus Character/Titanic and Galvanised Hull to make AP -1 to AP 0. Both of these could be huge as I got shot by a lot of AP -1 weapons when playing a Marine tank army piloted by Stephen from Boston. We ended up talking about how kids are crazy because I got lucky with some explosions. But both of these powers could have been amazing if I remember to generate them on my Knights. I always got one Dreadblade for free and usually had an extra Command Point to turn another one into a scary loner who somehow keeps his Ambition rules.
The Games
Game-wise most of my matchups were using the power of my movement to gain good lines of shooting as well as correct choosing of targets. I almost messed up in my Space Marine game where I concentrated on one vehicle when I could have blown it up with the other options first and then had a chance to throw thermal death into one of the big Repulsor tanks. I got lucky in that game with a special blow up from a charging Space Wolf Slam Captain let me explode, go big, and then murder the middle of his army. I also had that happen in a daemon match up for the first round to allow me to clear out some of his characters in the middle. I saved points to blow up on a 4+ with CPs to reroll it. These were not on hot 6’s so it wasn’t nearly as nutty as it could have been.
Thomas way in the upper right corner (pink shirt)
We did not play any of the invulnerable save mission, so that was useful for me. I think the weirdest mission was the last one that had moving objectives.
I played Sebastian from Mexico with an amazing AM army with some Custodes biker buddies. I ended up getting lucky to live through some Pask Love, Vulture Love, and Basilisk damage. From there my output was nuts, and I murdered tanks turn after turn and got charged into some juicy AM guardsmen to keep killing turn after turn. The objectives get rolled for at the top of the turn – the winner of the dice off gets to move the objective. You then get to score the objective at the start of the turn if you control it. So a winner could easily move the objective off of you, and you lose the point. I won a few roll offs and went up on points because I kept killing models. The extra attack from Iconclasts meant I usually got the Dawneagle Bikers down to a few wounds through any charge, and just removed them as they came too close. All 3 of my knights lived, which is usually a bad sign for my opponent.
I talked about how I killed 150 plague bearers. He rolled three ones, so some parts of units came back, but it was a nutty game. The Double Battle Cannon Knight went nutty during the match up and just always gained an extra attack each turn. As a blob of 30 got close, he started to gain two as he shot and charged a unit. This is where Death Hex shined as I got it off twice in the matchup and helped murder me a ton of stinky petes.
A Great, Well Run GW Event!
Overall it was a fun weekend. I got to chit chat with some of the fine folks from GW, play five good games on nice terrain (thanks Adepticon!), and ended up winning in the end! The GT was near the Citadel store, so I grabbed one a Dark Desire drink, the just special released Primaris Lieutenant, and some bases I need to help finish out parts of my army.
Thanks to Abe, Matt, and Adam for riding up with me and dealing with the fact I had to stop to pee too much from drinking too much coffee/tea. Look for my Chaos Knight Main ITC list end of the week. I’ve got two I am thinking about for SoCal bar any crazy changes coming down the pipeline.
~ Have you gone to any GW events? What did you think?
