Warhammer 40K: Codex Chaos Knights – Welcome to Flavortown, Population Zero
Goatboy here to talk about some of the missing flavor from Warhammer 40Ks new 10th Edition Codex: Chaos Knights. It’s a little dry…
Yes the Chaos Knight codex is better in some ways than the 10th Edition Index but a lot got “hit” to bring these giant evil jerks in line. I don’t agree with all the changes but I am sure someone will figure out a way to wreck me with them. I of course have a ton of Chaos Knight minis and will probably start sprinkling some into my armies as I figure out ways to utilize their somewhat fatter back ends, and slightly less tough outer shells.
NO Special Characters… le sigh
Why don’t we have a cool Chaos Knight special character? Wouldn’t it be neat to have some kind of crazy Abominant named something like The Storm and how it does crazier Chaos stuff? What about a knight who got corrupted by Khorne named Bloody Blood Face who’s a murderous rampager of death and destruction. He could be an old friend of Canis and he is even more of a jerk? He gets to die and come out as some kind of crazy Berserker warrior how is even more made you killed his ride? I just always hate to see some armies not get a unique character. Heck we even had an animation about it so why not create these crazy murderous feudal lord? Heck, it’s just a datashset or two, with some cool paint schemes and fluff, and doesn’t even need a new model.
Really Bland Melee Stats – C’mon, that Chainsword is ‘UGE!
I think they really did some of the Knights dirty with their limited “big” Close Combat attacks. In fact the entire range of Close Combat feels off to me. I don’t know why the big swords are sitting at 4 attacks from most and 6 for the “close combat” heavy one. These guys need to be coming in hot with their big weapon and getting a chance to wreck a unit of guys with their giant chainsword. It just feels a bit off to me that these giant killing machines are only slightly killy if they get close and start swatting things around for the Chaos gods of the dark storm.
Abominant Needs a Little More Pizzazz!
Speaking of the storm I think the Abominant is almost there but could have used a bit more work. I like how much it hits in close combat and is one of the few things from this book that feels right when it gets mixed in. It is swinging all its weapons around, probably super mad at something, and just smelling up the place with the gathering storm around it. What doesn’t work is its giant gun that looks cool but never does much. Why doesn’t it have an extra pip of AP? Why not give it 2 and let it be a true weird Volkite/plasma thing that also does devastating wounds? So much of the time it tries to shoot something and you hope you roll one devastating wound to “kill” that elite unit. It is so close to being there and if they bring the points down low for it – it could be the secret sauce to getting things working. The waves of Mortal Wounds, the ability to Battleshock things, and just being a nice range of “anti” elite close combat attacks could see it show up on the table top.
Give the Codex Just a Little More Spice Please!
Do I think the Chaos Knights Codex is good? I am not sure yet as again the points will matter. Do I think it could do some work into the Meta? Maybe as again if there is a decent amount of Bigs on the tabletop we start to have a problem. I also wonder what the true army GW wants to have with the Knights and how many bigs versus smalls are needed. I think the Imperial Knights are pretty close to where they want it with 2-3 Bigs with the Armigers running around and wonder if GW would really build and design the Chaos Knights to be the same thing.
What do you think? Is the codex looking ok to you? Are you excited to bring your spiky knights out on the tabletop?
