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

===Dreadblades===
Like the Freeblades, Dreadblades get a set of Pacts and Damnations that help or hinder them (respectively), and can either be selected or rolled for. Ordinarily, only one Dreadblade ''model'' in a detachment can have any Pacts/Damnations, but since you can have multiple Dreadblades in a detachment, and the Tyrannical Court strat permanently renders a chosen knight a character, and the Rune of Nak’T’Graa relic grants a Pact and a Damnation, it's possible to get 2 Pacted Dreadblades into the same detachment.  

Like the Freeblades' Burdens, Damnations only take effect upon failing a Ld check at the start of each turn. Failure happens when a 2d6 roll meets or exceeds the Knight's Ld.  Ordinarily, this means War Dogs fail 5/12 of the time, and everyone else fails 5/18 of the time - i.e. in a 6 turn game, even the latter Knights expect to fail roughly twice.  There is a Pact that modifies this, as well as a Damnation, and you can take a relic for +1Ld.

Unlike Freeblades, Dreadblades still benefit from Household Ambitions, because the {{W40Kkeyword|Dreadblade}} keyword is ''in addition'' to the {{W40Kkeyword|<Questor Traitoris>}} Keyword, rather than in place of it, and having rogues among a faction of rogues is fun, and gives you a way to mitigate some of the variety gap in comparison to their Loyalist counterparts.

====Pacts====
Choose any 1, or roll twice, with duplicates having no effect.  This means even when you roll, 1/6 of the time you won't get a second Pact, so you should always choose.  Most of the time, your best options are Knower of Profane Secrets, which amounts to gaining a CP in exchange for your Damnations, and Galvanized Hull, which makes you somewhat harder to kill.

#'''Path to Glory'''- Re-roll hits (yes, all of them!) against {{W40Kkeyword|Character}} or {{W40Kkeyword|Titanic}} targets.
#*Useful when it comes up, but remember, you usually can't shoot characters, and very few targets will ever be Titanic.
#*Pretty dang crazy on a Knight Tyrant armed with a volcano lance and plasma decimator. The lance will have re-roll everything against Titanic at that point and remember, it has 3D3 Damage... See that Baneblade? Now you don't.
#'''Thunderous Charge'''- After this unit finishes a charge move, roll 1d6 for each enemy unit within 1". On a 4+, the enemy unit takes 1d3 mortal wounds.
#'''Daemonic Vigor'''- roll 1d6 when this pact is chosen. On 1-3, add +2 to the unit's move. On 4-5, improve the Dreadblade's WS by 1. On a 6, improve its BS by 1.
#*Even when you choose this Pact instead of rolling for it, you then have to roll for its effect, making it practically one of the worst ones, because you can't plan for what it will do.  Plus, when rolling for pacts, rolling this one twice still does nothing, even if it would result in 2 distinct effects.
#*It's an edge case, but this isn't such a bad idea on a Despoiler armed with a chainsword, gauntlet and a stormspear rocket or ironstorm missile pod. More movement just means earlier charges, WS1+ makes the gauntlet a no-brainer when faced with heavy tanks and BS2+ rockets aren't half bad either.
#'''Knower of Profane Secrets'''- +1 leadership; at the start of the first battle round, gain 1 command point if any models with this Pact are on the battlefield. One of the best options, both for the additional CP and the leadership bonus, which makes Damnations less likely to kick in.
#*Because the CP gain does not stack, using this Pact on multiple Dreadblades is a bit wasteful - without the CP, all you're practically doing is giving your model a Damnation and then making it less likely.
#*Damnations go off 15/36 (5/12, slightly less than half) of the time for Ld8 (War Dogs), 10/36 (5/18, slightly less than one third) for Ld9 (War Dogs with this Pact, all other Knights base), and 6/36 (1/6) of the time for Ld10 (non-War Dogs with this Pact).  Plan accordingly.
#'''Galvanized Hull'''- Attacks that target this Knight which would normally be AP-1 are downgraded to AP0.
#*Your only way to “improve” your armour save in the codex, but only against AP-1.  Still, one of the better Pacts.
#'''Arch-fiend'''- The Dreadblade can perform heroic interventions when an enemy is within 6" and can move 6" when doing so.
#*Combine with the Infernal Quest Warlord Trait to make a great objective camping Despoiler. You now have Objective Secured and count as 10 models for it and if anyone comes within 6" you get to jump into combat with them. Due to your base size, you can also stand on the objective in such a way that it's impossible to contest it without being in Heroic Intervention range.

====Damnations====
Choose any 2, or roll once.

#'''Forsaken'''-  While this Damnation applies, the Dreadblade cannot be the target of '''''any''''' stratagems used by the controlling player, including Command Point Re-roll. Furthermore, this Damnation makes the Damned Knight less likely to have its Damnations trigger, as it gets -1 to the roll, which is equivalent to +1 Ld for the roll.
#*Damnations go off 15/36 (5/12, slightly less than half) of the time for Ld8, 10/36 (5/18, slightly less than one third) for Ld9, 6/36 (1/6) of the time for Ld10, and 3/36 (1/12) of the time for Ld11 - you can simulate Ld11 by combining this Damnation with the Knower of Profane Secrets Pact.  1/12 is low enough that fully half of your games will see your Damnations never go off.
#'''Warp Rage'''- While this Damnation applies, the Dreadblade cannot fall back and has a BS of 6+. A Rampager won't give a shit about this.
#* Iconoclast Rampagers give a mild shit, as they can't fall back 1" and re-charge a unit for +1A if combat drags out more than one turn. 
#'''Volatile Reactor'''- While this Damnation applies, roll a d6 at the end of any phase that the model lost a wound. On a 4+, the Dreadblade loses one additional wound.
#*We talked a lot about letting your knights taking more wounds above... but come on, having your knight get bruised and scratched to get buffed or summon daemons is one thing, but letting your opponent do more damage to on purpose with no benefit is inexcusable. DO NOT TAKE THIS!   
#'''Warp Fugue'''- While this Damnation applies, the Dreadblade always fights last regardless of if it charged or has any abilities/relics that make it fight first.
#*Not a huge issue unless you're up against something that can actually hurt you (such as another knight) ''and'' you charged it - anything charging you would fight first anyway, and if you charged a tarpit on purpose, it'll just bounce off harmlessly most of the time.  On a ranged Knight, you often have no reason to care about this at all.
#'''Single-minded Hatred''' While this Damnation applies, the Dreadblade can only shoot at the nearest visible enemy and charge the nearest visible enemy.
#'''Defiant Machine Spirit'''- While this Damnation applies, subtract 1 from charge and advance rolls and 1 from hit rolls.
#*Combine this with the Helm of Warp-Sight on a ranged Knight and stop caring - you were never going to charge or advance anyway, and now you ignore hit roll penalties.