Planning a Chaos Knights Army

I know.  I know.  Shut up.  I’m not stupid.  you’re stupid.  OK, no, I am stupid.  Shut up. 

I’ve liked the idea of Chaos Knights for a long time, but knew I didn’t want to do them as a straight, stock army.  Let’s look at making them more Nurgley, yeah?

Building the List

It seems that the competitive lists du jour involve a whole bunch of War Dogs with some allied Daemons to fill out those last few points. I do like the little guys. They’re cool and fun, and they look great. The thing is… I want to do this army more for the conversions than for the rules. So I’ll be doing a mixed force with some big guys and small lads. If my conversions for the Brigands go well I could expand them out in the future, I suppose.

With the goal of a mixed force, I decided that I wanted something combatty, something shooty, and something in between.

The combat-centric Knight is an obvious choice. It needs to be a Rampager. This thing is armed with a claw and a chainsword. Under the current 40K rules, the Rampager can only fight with one of these melee weapons in sa turn, but that’s okay. His various bonuses and the flexibility that the weapon choices afford us still make him a good inclusion, especially when paired with combat-centric War Dogs. Spoilers: I’m bringing some combat-centric War Dogs.

When it comes to shooting, I’m perhaps going a wee bit overboard with the biggest of lads; the Knight Tyrant. He’s a chunky boy. He’s also pretty tough and will be my General. This toughness could be reinforced with the enhancement to reduce the AP of incoming weapons.

Finally, there’s the Knight Desecrator. He’s my all-rounder. He’ll be armed with a laser destructor and a chainsword. The chainsword is mostly for the appearance when it comes to the conversion.

So there are the heavy hitters, coming in at 380, 550, and 425 points, respectively, once you include the enhancement on the Knight Tyrant.

That leaves us with 645 points to spend on the wee War Dogs. To make the most of the bonuses from the Knight Rampager (rerolling 1s to hit), let’s stick in a couple of War Dog Karnivores. They do suffer from the same problem as the Rampager in that they have to choose one hand to fight with in a turn (I… I don’t know; 40K is dumb, ok?) but they have flexibility, rerollable charges, and they look fun.

Then we will include a pair of War Dog Brigands. Whilst the Knight Rampager gives the Karnivores rerolls in melee, the Knight Desecrator will give these guys some rerolls for shooting. These are wee mobile-fire platforms, and they look like they’ll be a lot of fun. They’re pretty heavy points-wise, but that’s fine for now.

The List

Chaos Knights
Strike Force (2000 points)
Traitoris Lance

CHARACTERS

Knight Desecrator (425 points)

• 1x Desecrator laser destructor
• 1x Diabolus heavy stubber
• 1x Reaper chainsword

Knight Rampager (380 points)

• 1x Diabolus heavy stubber
• 1x Reaper chainsword
• 1x Warpstrike claw

Knight Tyrant (550 points)

• Warlord
• 1x Brimstone volcano lance
• 1x Ectoplasma decimator
• 2x Gheiststrike missile launcher
• 1x Titanic feet
• 2x Twin daemonbreath meltagun
• 1x Twin desecrator cannon
• Enhancement: Panoply of the Cursed Knights

BATTLELINE

War Dog Brigand (170 points)

• 1x Armoured feet
• 1x Avenger chaincannon
• 1x Daemonbreath spear
• 1x Diabolus heavy stubber

War Dog Brigand (170 points)

• 1x Armoured feet
• 1x Avenger chaincannon
• 1x Daemonbreath spear
• 1x Diabolus heavy stubber

War Dog Karnivore (140 points)

• 1x Diabolus heavy stubber
• 1x Reaper chaintalon
• 1x Slaughterclaw

War Dog Karnivore (140 points)

• 1x Diabolus heavy stubber
• 1x Reaper chaintalon
• 1x Slaughterclaw

The Planned Conversions

Right. Here we go…

So, I want this to be a fun project. I’m not a particularly good painter, but I can knock together a decent kitbash, and it’s certainly something I enjoy. Here are some that I’ve liked doing:

Can y’tell I like Nurgle?

I hit various sites to look at finished Knights. Some of these used stock models, whilst others used conversions. I’m not above a wee bit of intellectual theft… uh, inspiration, where it gives me some cool minis! Pinterest had some cool stuff, too!

Let’s work through these, one by one, starting with the Rampager. The Rampager is my favourite of the knights, conceptually, so let’s put our best foot forward.

The Knight Rampager is a bestial thing with a machine spirit that hungers for destruction and thrill of close quarters combat. To represent the bestial nature of this Knight, let’s go ahead and jam a big ol’ Hell Pit Abomination into it.

The Knight Tyrant is a chunky boy. I worry that he’s just too bit and won’t have the energy to go about his business. Let’s add a furnace to help him get around, yeah? I’ll be strapping a Miasmic Malignifier to him to really ensure he’s got what he needs. Maybe he needs a new head, too? I’ve got some Great Unclean One bits I can use for that.

The Knight Desecrator will be quite different to the other mechs, as he will be based on the Glottkin model instead of the Knight model itself. See that big laser gun? It’s getting shoved in the Glottkin’s hole. By that, I mean the one in his arm, with the teeth and the tentacles. The big tentacle will also go, being replaced with a Chainsword. We’ll see what else we can get done.

Onto the War Dogs, and the Karnivored are going to get some wings to really emphasise their speed. They’re also getting head swaps. Both of these adaptations will come courtesy of some Plague Drones. I should have enough of those left. They might need more bits. We’ll have to wait and see.

Finally, the War Dog Brigands will have a new carapace from the Blight Hauler. I’ve got a couple of these that I can try this out with. We’ll see how it works. I think this should be all they need, but we’ll see if it feels like enough.

In terms of growing the army in future, I have a few ideas. Let’s find some scything talons to be legs for some War Dog Stalkers, and I’ve got a spare Feculent Gnarlmaw to stick on top of a Knight Abhorrent. So many options.

I think this will be a bit of a slow-burn, but you never know; it might capture my attention. Cool stuff to come, but I don’t see myself really starting until the summer.