Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Chaos Knights (section)

==Wargear==
===Relics===
*'''Bound Varadian Psychogheist''': When making an attack with a ranged weapon by the bearer of this relic, any unmodified wound rolls of 6 have their AP improved by 1 (AP0 becomes AP-1).
**Probably the weakest of all the relics, as it's unreliable and weak.  Has a bigger impact the weaker the gun - if you wound on 2+, 1 in 5 of your inflicted wounds has better AP, while if you wound on 6+, ''all'' of your shots do, and if you can re-roll all failed wounds somehow, this becomes even more noticeable.  Furthermore, when it does come up, the AP difference is more noticeable the worse the gun's beginning AP.  This means that, as a general rule, this relic will modify your heavy stubbers, heavy flamers, and ironstorm missile pods the most, followed by avenger gatling cannons, and so on.  If you were already planning on taking a heavy stubber+dual gatling cannon+ironstorm Despoiler, that would be the primary time to consider this relic; for example, when shooting a Land Raider with a heavy stubber (not that you should be shooting one with one if you have a choice), this makes every wound you inflict twice as likely (2/6 instead of 1/6) to make it past the target's save.
**Not counting using the Rune relic to take Daemonic Vigour and hoping for the 1/6 chance of improved BS, this is one of only two relics you can take that buffs your ranged output directly on a non-Desecrator, so if you're trying to kit out a dakka Knight for offense, and you're up against an army without access to -1 to hit debuffs, this is what you've got.
*'''Helm of Warp-Sight''': Rampager, Desecrator, or Despoiler only. Ignore ''all'' hit roll modifiers when using ranged weapons.
**Situational, but against armies like the eldar, tyranids, and the like where -1 to hit (or worse) are common, this trait will earn dividends. RAW this also ignores any positive modifiers you could possibly get, including the +1 from your Icarus AA gun, so never combine the two.
*'''Khornate Target''': Once per battle during the Fight phase, the user can sacrifice their invulnerable save for that phase to have all their melee attacks bypass enemy invulnerable saves. 
**Risky, but devastating on a Knight Rampager. Since the invuln save you'd be sacrificing by using this is your Ion shield, which is only for ranged weapons anyway, getting stuck in on the turn the Target is used will offset the downside of triggering it. 
*'''Putrid Carapace of Nurgle''': Whenever the bearer makes a successful saving throw against a melee attack, roll a d6. On a 4+, the attacker takes a mortal wound after their attacks are resolved.
**The more attacks an enemy makes against you the more mortal wounds they take, although you will see diminishing returns the higher the AP is of the attacker.
*'''Quicksilver Throne of Slaanesh''': +1 to advance and charge rolls of the bearer. In addition, the bearer always fights first in the Fight phase. 
**The worst of the four “god” relics, but on one of the forge world knights which are naturally very quick it helps to guarantee a first turn charge.
*'''Rune of Nak'T'Graa''': Dreadblade only. 5++ invulnerable save against ranged and melee attacks. In addition, the Dreadblade gains one additional pact and damnation of your choice.
**Note that this can be applied to a Dreadblade with neither a Pact nor a Damnation; aside from getting two Pacted Dreadblades into a detachment, this also means you can have 1 Dreadblade that is using its relic slot to remove 1 Damnation despite being allowed to choose Damnations.  
*'''The Traitor's Mark''': Enemies within 12" of the user take -1 to their Ld, which becomes -2 if they're within 6". Run alongside Night Lords and maybe a H&R Supreme Command detachment of Psykers to reduce your opponent's Custodes to sniveling cowards!
**Stacks with the iconoclast faction trait for an effective -3 to leadership within 6”.
*'''The Tyrant's Banner''': Knight Rampagers, Knight Desecrators, and Knight Despoilers only. Adds +1 to the Ld of all Chaos units within 6", and as long as the user is on the field in a battle-forged detachment you get a bonus CP on a 5+.
**Notably, if you take the Knower of Profane Secrets Pact, the Forsaken Damnation, and this relic, your Damnations will only trigger on 12s normally - i.e. 1/36 of the time.  That said, being Ld11 doesn't normally help you, since the only use you usually have for Ld aside from resisting Damnations is resisting certain specific Psycher powers.
*'''Tzeentchian Pyrothrone''': Turns your Chaos Knight into a Psyker. The model knows Smite and can manifest and deny one psychic power. If the Knight has the Warp-haunted Hull Warlord Trait, they can attempt to deny two powers instead. Also, the Knight always explodes when it dies from Perils (with Tyrants treating it as if they had rolled one 6).
**Knights make excellent psykers: they’re tough, fast and have a lot of wounds, which is the complete opposite of a normal psyker's profile. While only one smite a turn isn’t a lot compared to other factions, it’s still up to 3.5 (typically about 1.8) mortal wounds a turn for a faction whose low numbers work against the amount of damage they might be able to do per turn. 

====Relic Weapons====
*'''The Diamonas''': Replaces a Laser Destructor, making it Desecrator only. 60" Heavy 3 S16 AP-4 D1d6. Any unmodified wound roll of 6 inflicts 1d3 mortal wounds in addition to any other damage. The change from Heavy 1d3 to Heavy 3 and the +2S make this much more efficient at taking out high priority targets over the Desecrator's base weapon.
*'''The Gauntlet of Ascension''': Replaces a Thunderstrike Gauntlet. Sx2 AP-4 D6, can re-roll ''all'' hits and wounds. Gain +1A and +1S each time you kill a {{W40Kkeyword|character}} ''model'' with this weapon.
** Note that this doesn't have the rules to to throw '''{{W40Kkeyword|Vehicle}}''' or '''{{W40Kkeyword|Monster}}''' units like the Thunderstrike Gauntlet does.  It also has no to-hit penalty.
*'''The Teeth that Hunger''': Replaces a Reaper Chainsword. S+8 AP-4 D6 (effectively turning it into a Thunderstrike Gauntlet without the hit penalty and throwing ability). +1 attack with this weapon, but it gets pissed if you don't kill any enemies with it. At the end of a fight phase where no enemies died specifically to this weapon, roll 1d6. On a 1, the bearer takes a mortal wound.  Never take this; anything that could take this can take the Gauntlet instead, and the Gauntlet is a lot better, not least because you're not penalized for switching to your feet when you need to.

====Iconoclast Household Exclusive====
*'''Veil of Medrengard''': 4++ Invulnerable Save against ranged weapons. Cannot be taken by Dreadblades.
**Does what is says on the tin, but unfortunately as you lack an ability which gives enemies a minus one to hit you, you can’t recreate the cheese that loyalist house raven can pull off.
***Combine this with Vow of Dominance on a Tyrant and you can laugh off pretty much all the melta and lascannon shots in the world.
*'''{{W40Kkeyword|House Herpetrax}} - Crown of Jedathra''': Subtract 1 from hit rolls when fighting against a Knight equipped with this relic.
*'''{{W40Kkeyword|House Khymere}} - Annihilatum''': A conflagration cannon that changes its type to assault and gains an extra point in damage.
*'''{{W40Kkeyword|House Lucaris}} - Serpentstrike''': Replaces both the twin meltaguns on a Knight Tyrant for 1 with the number of shots for 2 twin meltaguns and an extra point of strength.

====Infernal Household Exclusive====
*'''The Blasphemous Engine''': Double the number of Wounds remaining when determining the model's damage chart. Cannot be taken by Dreadblades.
**Useful, but rather meh when you remember that the loyalists get this as a faction trait.
***Becomes a lot less meh when you remember Infernals can be T9 for the price of D3 Mortal Wounds every turn and can heal AND come back to life with their unique stratagems.
*'''{{W40Kkeyword|House Khomentis}} - Daemonic Shrike''': At the start of your shooting phase, choose 1 enemy unit within 18" of the Knight with this relic. All attacks by that Knight to the selected unit improve their AP by 1.
*'''{{W40Kkeyword|House Vextrix}} - Heretek Power Core''': Add 1" to the Knight's movement and add 1 damage to a Reaper Chainsword or Thunderstrike Gauntlet equipped by the Knight. When the Knight is destroyed, add 1 to any dice rolled to see if it explodes.

===Basics===
Everything in your army has an Ion Shield, and everything has at least one of the guns:  everything that isn't a Tyrant comes with a heavy stubber, which War Dogs and Despoilers can replace with a meltagun, while Tyrants come with 4 compulsory meltaguns.  Meanwhile, Despoilers can take up to 2 more heavy stubbers as part of their arm loadouts.

*'''Ion Shield'''
**Now just a 5++ all-round versus shooting.
*'''Heavy Stubber'''
**Pop-gun, now not even needed for setting up charges.
*'''Meltagun'''
**A few more points isn't a big deal on such expensive models, and you can walk out of combat to fire it.  Only Thermal Spear War Dogs will ever actually want to Advance and fire this thing, though, as everything else in your army that can take this will have Heavy guns on it that it cares about more, which it can't fire after Advancing.

===Arm Weapons===
====Ranged====
=====War Dog=====
*'''War Dog Autocannon''' - 60" Heavy 2D3 S7 AP-1 D3. Exactly the same profile as the Predator autocannon, which was already really good, except with two extra added benefits. First is a 12" increase in range, but the best part is these autocannons specifically ignore the hit roll penalty for moving and firing heavy weapons. This allows your war dogs, who come with two of these at a time, to skirt around the battlefield as a fantastic hit and run unit. Just be careful, as taking the twin autocannons means you have no chain-cleaver, and by proxy no defense against enemies that charge you rather than just running away. Fortunately, 14" movement means you will probably outrun anything that isn't jump infantry or a bike/skimmer.
*'''Thermal spear''' - 30" Assault D3 S8 AP-4 D1d6 melta (roll an additional die dropping the lowest for damage at half range or less). Basically just a longer ranged meltagun with more potential shots. Will absolutely annihilate vehicles, especially if combined with the meltagun you get if you replace the default heavy stubber. 30" range means you can get into half range with more safety against counter attacks. 14" movement makes getting in range a cakewalk and if any enemies do get close enough to counter attack you've at least got the chain-cleaver to clear out mobs of enemies.

=====Tyrant=====
*'''Conflagration Cannon''' - 18" Heavy 3D6 S7 AP-2 D2 auto hits. This is '''the second''' most powerful flamer-like weapon in 40k (just after the Warhound's Inferno gun), but it comes at a risk. Being 18" range on such a massive model makes it very vulnerable to being focused down by enemy guns. And having to take the harpoon with it means you're a lot more limited in long range fire. However if you're fighting a big horde army like orks or nids then it will single handedly scorch a swathe through their hordes. It also has the upside that being its a giant flamer, the auto hits means you don't have to worry about missing shots due to degrading ballistic skill.
**Becomes straight up ridiculous when combined with Daemonic Power on Infernal Chaos Knights. You're essentially throwing 3D6 thunder hammers up to 18" inches away. Have fun!
*'''Plasma Decimator''' - 48" Heavy 2D6 Plasma gun with all the same stats as a plasma gun and the same ability to overcharge for +1 strength and +1 damage at the risk of suffering a mortal wound if you roll a 1 to hit. Due to the sheer number of shots you can get with this thing you generally want to use the trail of destruction stratagem to get as many successful hits and as few rolled 1's as possible. Went up to 40 points in the 2019 Big FAQ.
**A decent combo for Infernals: take D3 Mortal Wounds, pick Daemonic Power, buff the Plasma Decimator, use Trail of Destruction and supercharge. You're now shooting 2D6 S9 AP-3 Damage 3 plasma shots. Who needs Cawl's Wrath, anyway?
*'''Thundercoil Harpoon''' - 12" Heavy 1 S16 AP-6 '''DAMAGE 10!''' The highest damage weapon in 40k (discounting the D12 power claw on the Warlord Titan), with the added benefits of re-rolling hits when targetting a vehicle or monster. In addition if it inflicts ANY damage the target also suffers D3 mortal wounds meaning it can dead upwards of 13 damage in one hit. Even if your opponent makes 9/10 fnp rolls you still deal the D3 mortal wounds as well. Any vehicle or monster with less wounds than a predator will most likely go from 100-0 in one shot, Daemon primarchs and enemy questoris/dominus knights will be severely wounded by it. With some lucky rolls, you can kill [[Roboute Guilliman|Granddaddy Smurf]] in a single shot. With Strength 16 and AP-6, 99% of the things the harpoon hits will wound on 2's and will not have an armour save meaning the only thing that can stop this weapon is a successful invuln save. If you want to ensure that doesn't happen, ally in a Thousand sons sorcerer with death hex to strip your targets invuln save ahead of time. The harpoon does have one major weakness however, that being its range. 12" range is extremely short for a knight weapon meaning you will have to get very close to use it and you will also most likely be in range of your enemies meltaguns, plasma guns or lascannons, and unlike the conflagration cannon, you don't have the safety net of auto hitting. You only get the re-roll hits against monsters and vehicles, and while your knight may be able to move 10" per turn, it may still take a while to get in range and give your prime target the business. However, be careful when going up against Mechrons, as their {{W40kKeyword|Quantum Shielding}} special rule means that, RAW, you cannot damage them at all with the Harpoon. Overall, the Thundercoil Harpoon is a "fun" option and is best suited for:
** Stuff with lots of wounds but no invulnerable saves, like Baneblades, Land Raiders, Tyranid monsters of all types, and Gorkanauts
** Dealing the final fuck you to said stuff when they are at 11 wounds or less (10D + d3 mortal wounds).
*'''Volcano Lance''' Basically a smaller Shadowsword [[Volcano Cannon]], with slightly fewer shots, (SS has 3D3 Dominus gets D6) 40" shorter range, 2 less Strength and 3D3 wounds instead of 2D6 from its Shadowsword-mounted cousin. But a 80" Heavy d6 S14 AP-5 3d3 D gun that rerolls failed wounds against {{W40Kkeyword|Titanic}} units is still nothing to sneeze at. It also doesn't get the Shadowswords +1 to hit {{W40Kkeyword|Titanic}} which is a bit of a bummer. But the trail of destruction stratagem helps make sure that whatever you shoot at with this thing gets put down, '''PERMANENTLY'''. Also weirdly enough this is the only dominus arm weapon that actually costs points to bring. The Spring 2019 Big FAQ bumped it up to 70 points, this combined with the Plasma Decimator's price bump makes Knight Castellans 110 points more expensive now.

=====Despoiler=====
*'''Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon and Heavy Stubber''' - The battle cannon is no longer the reliable MEQ-slayer it once was, and this version is no different. 72" Heavy 2D6 S8 AP-2 D1d3. It does have massive range, tied with the ironstorm missiles for the longest range weapon available to the Despoiler class, and unlike Imperials, you can take two of them for good backfield sniping. Add a carapace gun for even more ranged blasting.
**The middle cost option, at 92 points for each package.
*'''Thermal Cannon''' - What melta guns dream of being when they grow up: 36" Heavy D6 S9 AP-4 D1d6 melta. Dirt cheap at 55 points, and doesn't bring a secondary weapon with itself like the battle and gatling cannons do; it really needs to be targeting multi-wound models to make it count. Mind, you can always double up on them because god-damn that's a lot of heat. 36" range means you'll be a lot safer if you walk into half range to get that extra damage roll. Will typically evaporate whatever you're aiming at.
**The cheapest option now by a pretty significant margin. Even ranged Chaos Knights like being up close with the Iconoclast Household Ambition, so double Thermal Cannons is a pretty tempting option.
**If you're not up close, the RFBC by itself does do more A*D (this does 12.25 against a target with 6 or more wounds per model; an RFBC does 14 on average against a target with 3 or more wounds per model), albeit at slightly worse S and AP.  Up close, this scoots up to ‭15.65 A*D, on average.
**However, this weapon also has more variance than the others - your number of shots will vary more than the RFBC's do, and the Gatling Cannon doesn't vary at all; the same thing applies to the damage roll, although up close your variance is actually less than the RFBC's.  Taking these means you need to rely on volume of fire to average out your rolls to the point where you can reasonably predict what they'll do - you should always take 2 of them if you're taking any, rather than 1 and something else.
*'''Avenger Gatling Cannon and Heavy Flamer''' - The best all-rounder, albeit the most expensive at 99 all told. Heavy 12 S6 AP-2 D2 is the absolute champ against all kinds of infantry, including TEQ (that 2 damage in particular will make Primaris marines and the like cry), although it has clearly been designed exclusively with GEQs in mind (S6 wounds them on 2s, and -2AP ensures they don't get a save). Tears up light vehicles and can do useful work against the heavy stuff - outshooting the RFBC even if it doesn't match the Inferno cannon. With a pair of these you will put out an ''outrageous'' 24 shots per turn - goddamn!
**Combined with Daemonic Power (Infernal Household Ambition) this is strong as fuck, but has competition now with the very efficient double Thermal Cannons.

=====Desecrator=====
*'''Laser Destructor'''- Newest weapon found on the Knight Desecrator, but at 60" S14 AP-4 and D1d6, plan on eating tanks alive with this new and improved loyalist killer! (except it only gets D3 shots so you're not gonna kill much with it) To top if off on a wound of 6+ it deals d3 Mortal wounds on top of everything else!
**ALWAYS take The Diamonas relic if you want to take this weapon. Even just the change from Heavy d3 to Heavy 3 is worth the command point(s), let alone bumping up your strength so you can wound other knights and Lemans Russ on a 2+.

====Close Combat====
Renegade Knights come with both the close combat weapons base, which you should probably upgrade as quickly as possible. These guys have lost the big "D", and in exchange do a flat 6 damage per hit. Great at wrecking vehicles and MCs, but they can be very binary - there's lots of things like dreadnoughts with >6 wounds that take two hits to kill and can leave a nasty mark if they get to hit back, so it's always advisable to try to soften these targets up a bit first. As noted below, you're better off kicking most infantry to death instead.

=====War Dog=====
*'''Reaper Chain-Cleaver''' - A smaller reaper chainsword for the armiger, obviously weaker than its big brother, but it comes with two weapon profiles instead of one: an Sx2 AP-3 D3 Strike, or an SU AP-2 D1 Sweep that makes 2 hit rolls for each attack instead of one. Effectively giving you either 8 strength 6 attacks, or 4 strength 12 attacks for either hordes of enemies or tougher vehicles. It's worth noting though that unlike the armiger's big brothers, they don't have titanic feet, meaning if you don't bring the thermal spear and chain-cleaver, you will be left without a way to defend yourself in melee.

the sweep attack benefits greatly from the infernal damage boost, going from 1 to 2 damage.  the bonus strength is unlikely to matter though.

=====Everyone Else=====
*'''Reaper Chainsword''' - S14/AP-3/D6. Best for light-medium vehicles and medium-sized gribblies. It's not bad against stuff like Landraiders, but the gauntlet edges it out.
*'''Thunderstrike Gauntlet''' - S16/AP-4/D6. Higher strength and AP in exchange for -1 to hit and a meager +5 points. (Of course, Wraithknights get the best of both worlds with Sx2 and no hit penalty, but it's not like I'm salty or anything.) This excels at pretty much the same things the Inferno cannon does; anything T7/3+ or better. Plus, you get the lulzy spectacle of chucking a dead razorback at his warlord for extra mortal wounds, keep in mind that if you do this you are required to tell your opponent that they've been thunderstruck. The choice between the two is pretty much a toss-up depending on your opponent - take the gauntlet vs. IG and the sword vs. Deldar, etc, but either one will do the job most of the time.
*'''Titanic Feet''' - Now we're talking. Triple attacks at S8/AP-2/DD3, this replaces Stomp and makes infantry cry. This beats the other (cooler) melee weapons against any 1- or 2-wound models, including terminators. It's also surprisingly decent at kicking Rhinos and the like to death, but falls off badly against anything T8 or with a 2+. This is also the only melee weapon that Dominus knights have access to.

===Carapace Weapons===
====Tyrant====
*'''Twin Siegebreaker Cannons''': 48", Heavy 2d3, S7 AP-1 DD3. Pretty much a bigger autocannon and works just as well as one.
*'''Shieldbreaker Missiles''': 48" S10 AP-4 D1d6. Each missile can be fired only once per game and you can't fire more than one in a turn, like the Hunter-Killer Missile; they come in pairs. Unlike its little brother, it also bypasses invulnerable saves, which means it works wonders against big multi-wound targets with high invulnerable saves.
** Try not to overload on these things. Their one shot per turn / one use per battle coupled with your mediocre BS makes them unreliable at best.  You can't take any number of them aside from 2 or 4 on the models that can have them, but don't take more than 4 army wide, even if you've paid for two of the carriers.
**These missiles also help to somewhat mitigate how powerful invulns can be on some units. Yeah, odds are that volcano lance will fuck up a Leviathan Dreadnought, but if he gets lucky with his saves, at least you have these bad boys hanging around.

====Despoiler====
*'''Ironstorm Missile Pod''' - Eh, it's cheap. That's about it. Shoots D6 S5/AP-1/D2 at the same range as an RFBC but doesn't require line of sight to hit. It's okay for taking out something not within the firing line but doesn't do much else. Except that one of the hottest trends in the meta are hidden biovores, hive guard, or heavy weapons mortar squads that we can now take out without having to go searching under rock like we're looking for ants. 
*'''Stormspear Rocket Pod''' - It's expensive, but it's effectively three krak missiles, and most armies pay more than 15 points a pop for a missile launcher on a platform that's not remotely as survivable. This is better than the other carapace weapons against any target barring a few weird edge cases (Inceptors). Use it to soften up light vehicles, pick off lone Crisis suits, or even kill a MEQ or two.
*'''Twin Icarus Autocannons''' - Lots of surprising things have <FLY>, right? Tau suits, jetbikes & skimmers, jump infantry... This is true, but is not enough to stop the Icarus being aggressively mediocre; FAQ'd to Heavy 4, marginally more expensive than the Ironstorm Missile Pod. Against T7 and below it outperforms the Ironstorm Missile Pod assuming you can see your target, and besides, you can still take two of the other guns. Autocannons might actually have a use on Renegade Knights!
**This may have some value on a Knight equipped with the Helm of Warp-Sight, as it would allow you to fire the Icarus Autocannons at native BS regardless of target. Sure, you lose the bonus against {{W40Kkeyword|Fly}}, but you'll lose the penalty against everything else!