If you’re a fan of leering skulls, spiky carapaces, and flocks of evil birds, you’re in luck – the Chaos Knight Army Box is stomping closer and closer.
It contains three wicked new war machines – the Knight Abominant and two War Dogs – and it’s the first place you’ll be able to get the new Codex: Chaos Knights.These vile engines of destruction can conjure a psychic Warp Storm and earn the fair-weather Favour of the Dark Gods, but there’s even worse brewing on the horizon.
While armies of Imperial Knights can earn honour by following the Code Chivalric, the Chaos Knights snuff out hope wherever they go. Warp-spawned phenomena coalesce around these corrupted engines like clouds gathering atop a heavily-armed mountain – if every unit in your army has the CHAOS KNIGHTS keyword,* they become true Harbingers of Dread.
This new ability offers a series of cumulative effects that emanate from every corrupted Knight in your army, creating a pall of unnatural weather that swells and twists as the fighting intensifies. At the start of each battle round, you choose an ability from one of three categories – adding a new ingredient to your bubbling brew of Doom, Despair, and Darkness.
These Harbinger abilities follow an ominous meteorological cycle – if you pick Despair, you can’t pick Darkness next round, and vice versa. You’ll need to carefully manage the ebb and flow of your nightmarish storm… Or just pick Doom for all five rounds. DOOM, DOOM, DOOM…
In any case, the first battle round always starts with Doom. These abilities focus on weakening enemy morale, and Dread Host is no exception – it penalises enemy Leadership and Combat Attrition tests, because who wouldn’t feel terrified at the sight of a pack of towering war machines?**
That grim little skull icon indicates that this is a Dreaded ability. These can be found throughout the new codex, and (similarly to auras) affect all enemies within Dread range. They normally reach out to 12”, but mortals beware – the Ruinous Powers can stretch them further...
Since you always start with Doom, when the second battle round arrives you can pick from all three categories. Despair abilities aim to disrupt your opponent’s plans and tactics – so why not grab Creeping Dismay, which stifles the range of auras and commands from enemy leaders?
Apologies to the Knight Preceptor – school’s out for summer. Of course, that means you’ll have to continue with Despair or move back to Doom next round – no flip-flopping straight to Darkness!
If you’d picked differently in the second round, you’d be able to grab a Darkness ability*** in round three. Darkness abilities focus on shrouding your Knights from harm – Pall of Darkness blots the sky with flocks of frenzied pterrorshades, inflicting a penalty to enemy hit rolls if they’re too far away from their target. It’s perfect for unleashing your upgraded plasma decimator as supernatural shadows protect your advancing army.
Ah, but if you stomped your way over to Darkness in round three, you’d have no way to snatch the Despair ability for round four! Paralyzing Insanity strips enemies of their Objective Secured ability, as corrupted vox casters flood the air with a cacophony of screaming and gibbering. It’s a wonderful way to shake down massed troops while your own War Dogs race in for the kill.
Choices, choices… With such a domino line of decisions to make, it wouldn’t be surprising if you were a bit paralysed yourself! Fortunately, it gets simpler in the fifth battle round, where the fearsome flowchart narrows to a chaotic climax with Horrors of the Warp.
This final Doom ability unleashes a wave of daemonic energy to ravage the tattered psyches of the foolish warriors who still stand against you, making Combat Attrition tests that much harder. And since it stacks with Dread Host, your foes will flee on rolls of 3 or less, with unmodified 1s causing an extra model to scarper.
By the end of the battle, you’ll have carved your very own bloody path of Doom, Despair, and Darkness – no two battles need be the same, but they will all be genuinely horrifying for your foes.
The Chaos Knights Army Set will be your first terrifying taste of this powerful new ability, and gives you everything you need to sweep across battlefields with a host of dire powers in your wake.
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* UNALIGNED and AGENT OF CHAOS units, as ever, get a pass.
** The Adeptus Astartes may “Know No Fear”, but they do know self-preservation.
*** These are a particular favourite of Be'lakor's buddies in House Korvax.