AoS: Hero Focus – Chaos Lord on Karkadrak
The new Chaos Lord on Karkadrak can power its way through most enemies. Come take a closer look at how to use this chaotic new champion.
The Slaves to Darkness already have some really gnarly hero choices, up to and including the AoS BBEG himself Archaon, so it would be hard to bring in a new one to turn heads. However, possibly through some illicit pacts with the Dark Gods themselves, GW managed to do just that with the beefy boi that is the Lord on Karkadrak. Here are my thoughts on the new beast master and his angry crocodile rhino, and some tactics for using them on the battlefield.
As expected of a Chaos Lord riding a big scaly monster, the Lord on Karkadrak is a pretty tough model, with 9 wounds and a 3+ armor save. So the obvious way around that would be mortal wounds, but the Lord laughs at those as well with his Rune-etched Plating, allowing him to ignore mortal wounds on a 5+. While not the fastest mount available, the Karkadrak gives the lord a 9” movement, allowing him to keep pace with the Chaos Knights or Chariots you’ll want him close to (more on that later). But honestly, what you’re taking this guy for is his combat prowess, and he brings that in spades.
Right off the bat when you charge him into combat, every enemy unit within 1” suffers d3 mortal wounds on a 2+, so if you charge him towards a hero with some support, you can soften up both the boss and the guard in one fell swoop. His first attack is his Hexed Battle-axe, which gives him 5 attacks hitting and wounding on 3+ and dealing 2 damage each. Scary as that is on its own, should you kill any models with these attacks, you can heal d3 wounds that have been dealt to the Lord, buffering his survivability even more and keeping him in the fight longer, especially against single wound hordes.
His second weapon, the Daemonbound Blade, has a few less attacks with a bit more punch potential, giving him 3 attacks that also hit and wound on a 3+, have a Rend of -1, and deal d3 damage. On top of that, should any of your rolls to hit be an unmodified 6, the pissed off spirit inside the blade wakes up and smacks your opponent, dealing 1 mortal wound in addition to normal damage. And then, of course, there’s the Karkadrak, which attacks with it’s Tearing Horn and Claws as well as its Battering Tail.
The Claws and Horn give it 3 attacks that hit on a 4+, wound on a 3+, have a Rend of -1, and deal 2 damage each, while the Tail gives 2 attacks that hit and wound on a 4+ and deal 1 damage a piece. I plan to run my army as Ravagers, and I am giving my Karkadrak mounted Lord the Flames of Spite ability, which gives him the ability to deal an additional mortal wound on an unmodified wound roll of 6 for all his attacks, increasing his damage potential exponentially.
In addition, I want him to be a hero slayer, so I am also outfitting him with the Ulgu artefact Sword of Judgement, selecting his Battle-axe. That way, he can potentially do 5d6 mortal wounds to any heroes or monsters he faces, and since that will almost certainly take down anything he has to go against, it will not only heal him but give him a coveted roll on the Eye of the Gods table.
Outside of his astronomical damage potential, the Lord on Karkadrak packs a fabulous stack of special abilities. First, his command ability, The Knights of Chaos, allows him to select a unit of Chaos Knights, Chariots, or Gorebeast Chariots wholly within 18”, allowing them to re-roll failed charges and add 1 to their to hit rolls. Since all three of these units are much more powerful on the charge, especially the Knights if they bring lances, this is an almost auto-include if you plan to bring any cavalry in your army.
On top of that, he gains the Aura of Chaos ability, gaining a different bubble bonus depending on his chaos mark. For my money, I am partial to Slaanesh and Undivided, the former giving units wholly within 12” that share his mark to score an extra hit on an unmodified 6 and the latter making Undivided units immune to battleshock wholly within 12”.
Considering all the damage that Chaos Knights can do when boosted by the Knights of Chaos command ability, allowing them to score additional hits is huge, and since it includes himself, he can become an absolute murder machine. The other auras have their benefits too, and may suit your playstyle better (Tzeentch particularly can make your tough units even harder to shift) but those two are my favorites.
Will you be adding a Karkadrak Lord to your Chaos Horde?
