With the Chaos Knights Army Set coming soon, we’ve had a look at how these cursed weapons have changed, and how their pilots can petition the Chaos Gods for Dark Favours. But that’s not the end of their fell power.
The terrifying new Knight Abominant is not just a battlefield bully with puissant weaponry from a darker Age – such as the volkite combustor* – it’s also a Psyker that can call on the uncontrollable power of the empyrean to manifest ruinous powers from the Warp Storm discipline.
An Abominant can manifest two psychic powers per turn and knows two powers from this exclusive discipline. They draw power from the roiling tempests within the warp, making it a sort of malicious, mystical meteorologist, divining the weather and coaxing it to do its bidding.
Winds of the Warp summons forth a hurricane of gale-force winds that are so powerful they send projectiles careening off-target, with forks of lightning to prematurely detonate warheads – any time the caster loses a wound, a D6 roll of 5+ prevents this from happening. If they manifest this blessing on an 8 or higher, the winds may mutate and weld shut the damaged carapaces of War Dog-class Knights. If they’re within 6” of the Psyker when they lose a wound, you can roll a D6, and the wound is not lost on a roll of a 6.
This inclement empyric weather also has offensive applications. The delightfully named Spitesquall conjures a hateful deluge of warp-tainted rain with the undesirable side effect of dragging enemy souls into the warp. The targeted unit may neither fire Overwatch nor Set to Defend, presumably due to their chattering teeth and tormented spirits.
You’ll also need to keep a tally for that unit, adding one every time a model is destroyed. At the end of each phase, if the unit is still on the battlefield, you roll one D6 for each tally mark, and for each roll of 5+ the unit suffers one Mortal Wound as the daemonic damp claims another victim. The tally rests at the end of each phase, so you’ll need to coordinate your attacks to deal maximum damage.
There are four more powers on offer, from coruscating lightning storms to hideous vortexes designed to tear your opponent's forces to pieces and scatter them to the four winds. But what if your Knight Desecrator wants a piece of the Psychic action?
Tzeentch has you covered! Any Chaos pilot can – for the dubious price of pledging their immortal soul to the duplicitous Changer of the Ways – earn the gift of the Pyrothrone for their Knight. This cockpit fills the pilot's mind with the combined arcane knowledge of nine-hundred and ninety-nine long-dead magisters.
In short, this gives the model the Tzeentch keyword, provides any Knight who isn’t an Abominant the Psyker keyword, and grants the ability to manifest and deny one psychic power. If they are already an Abominant, their power is multiplied to manifest and deny psychic powers up to three times a turn.
Couple that with the favoured ability – which you earn for racking up the kills for your daemonic patron – and you can turn one of these tusked Knights into a maelstrom of metaphysical power and make Tzeentch proud.
Having access to these psychic abilities should have Imperial Knight pilots quaking in their boots. Make sure you’re ready to capitalise on that fear by grabbing the Chaos Knights Army Set when it comes up for pre-order shortly.
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* There are plenty of forbidden weapons for you in Horus Heresy, if that’s your jam.