After an especially pious day in the Grotmas Calendar yesterday, we return to one of the true messages of the season: gigantic armoured machines knocking lumps out of one another in the Iconoclast Fiefdom and the Questor Forgepact Detachments. See if you can guess who’s been naughty and who’s been nice just from the names?
Iconoclast Fiefdom
When the Fallen Nobles of Iconoclast houses go to war, they are followed by teeming masses of mutants, cultists, and heretic soldiers. These awed mortals offer chanted prayers to these towering beacons of corruption, worshipping them as mechanical idols to the Dark Gods. Rushing forward around clawed feet, these accursed hordes scream battle cries and sing of their devotion as they hurl themselves at the foe. As the death count escalates, the Fallen Nobles rejoice in the bloodshed, the Warp‐twisted mechanisms of their Thrones Mechanicum feeding upon the sacrifice of their thralls, and infusing pilot and steed with ever‐greater infernal might.
With the Wretched Thralls rule, you'll now be able to bring a number of Damned units from Codex: Chaos Space Marines. The Dreaded Masters Detachment rule confers bonuses that allow your cultists and knights to benefit from one another. Each Chaos Knight in the army can make a Dark Sacrifice when it is selected to shoot or fight – trading the worthless lives of its followers for boons from the gods.
Worthless Chattel builds on this theme: you may ignore a Damned unit in combat when selecting targets for ranged weapons. This Stratagem is great for pinning down enemies with cultists even as the mighty Chaos Knights disdain their very existence.
The Questor Forgepact
The Forces of the Machine Cult and Imperial Knights work together in a slightly less unequal fashion in the Questor Forgepact.
Bound by oaths of fealty or otherwise, many Knightly households enjoy close relations with the Adeptus Mechanicus. Whether answering the Martian priesthood’s calls to arms or prosecuting their own wars of liberation against the Emperor’s foes, noble families often pilot their war suits to battle alongside their Tech‐Priest allies. Skitarii soldiery are inspired by the presence of these ancient engines of destruction, uttering awestruck psalms of veneration as they advance fearlessly towards the foe. In turn, the noble champions are blessed and inspired by the chanted prayers of the Machine Cult and their war suits empowered by the skill of Tech‐Priest artificers of incomparable talent.
This Detachment allies a forge world with your Imperial Knights, and with the Cogbound Alliance Detachment these allies work together in the form of two useful rules. Imperial Knights use the Sacristan Pledge to recover lost wounds in the Command Phase, but if a unit is within 3" of one or more friendly Tech‐Priest models, they may regain up to D3 lost wounds instead. Adeptus Mechanicus units earn Divine Inspiration: each time a model makes a ranged attack, they may re‐roll a Hit roll of 1 – and within 6" of a friendly Imperial Knight, they may re‐roll a Wound roll of 1 as well.
One Knight can be a devotee of the Omnissian Creed with the Knight of the Opus Machina Enhancement. Each time the bearer makes a ranged attack, if the bearer is within 6" of one or more friendly Adeptus Mechanicus units, it may also re‐roll a Hit roll of 1.
Those who dare to fell the Machine God’s creations find themselves subject to the Vengeance of the Machine Cult. When an Imperial Knight is destroyed, the enemy unit that destroyed it is Marked for the rest of the battle, granting [Lethal Hits] to Adeptus Mechanicus units that target it.
We move from big Knights to smaller ones tomorrow, as the Grey Knights take their turn.
