A 3-0 Iconoclast Fiefdom Tournament Report, Featuring a Very, Very Big Knight

Astute Warphammer fans might remember that early in 10th, I planned to play a lot of Chaos Knights in 10th Edition. I bought a full army from a friend, and we were ready to go all-in on the spikiest army of all. Our friend BoopNoodle in the Warphammer discord community (available here) reminded me about this recently, with this quote from my early 10th Edition GT Report with Chaos Knights:

This turned out to be a lie. But I mean, can you blame me? I love playing weird and creative Chaos stuff. Chaos Knights have been the most “solved” and least interesting faction to play all edition.

I really did enjoy playing Chaos Knights though, and I have been waiting for any reason to bring them back out. The Iconoclast Fiefdom detachment they received during Grotmas was right up my alley. I remember thinking at the time that the detachment had incredible support for a Knight Tyrant, and if Tyrants ever got a points drop, I would give them a go.

GW tried calling my bluff by dropping Tyrants 30 points in the last MFM. Guess what, James Workshop: I wasn’t bluffing. I’m about that action.

With an RTT a few days after the MFM using all of the new rules, I figured it was the perfect time to try both a Knight Tyrant and the Iconoclast Fiefdom in general.

Welcome to the first Warphammer Chaos Knights tournament report in a long time. I really enjoy this army, and hope there will be many more.

My Iconoclast Fiefdom List

• Knight Tyrant: Big Harpoon, Big Flamer, Enhancement: Diabolical Resilience
• War Dog Stalker: Melta, Claw, Havoc Launcher, Enhancement: Pave The Way
• 3x Brigands: Havoc Launchers
• 4x Karnivores: Havoc Launchers
• 3×10 Cultists
• 1×6 Nurglings
• Beast Of Nurgle

After playing 1 practice game and 3 games with this list, there isn’t a single thing I would change. It is a deep toolbox and incredibly fun.

Why Iconoclast Fiefdom?

Being able to take Cultists with your Chaos Knights is really good. Being able to take Cultists that Scout 6″ with your Chaos Knights is really, really, really good. Screens that are dirt cheap, sticky objectives, scout, and have the Grenades keyword just slot so perfectly into the CK gameplan.

The key to winning with Chaos Knights is resource conservation. Having 3 Cultist units that you can sacrifice to do grunt work for the cost of a single War Dog is indirectly a big defensive boost to the rest of your list.

The big downside of going from Traitoris Lance to Iconoclast Fiefdom is not having access to Knights of Shade. That is definitely painful. Knights Of Shade is just brilliant. However, let me offer a couple counterpoints. The first is that Knights Of Shade is less valuable on GW terrain than WTC terrain because they have so many great staging ruins with <2″ sections that you can move straight through anyway. It’s a wildly cracked stratagem regardless, but less mandatory on GW terrain. It’s also less valuable if you’re bringing a big Knight because they can move through terrain innately in the Movement Phase.

The second counterpoint is that Iconoclast Fiefdom has access to Unrestrained Rage, and that is just an incredible mobility boost that is not strictly worse than Knights Of Shade. For those unfamiliar with Iconoclast Fiefdom, Unrestrained Rage lets one unit Advance/Fall Back and Shoot/Charge. This is pure value and lets you constantly stay on the move, especially with a very large and very expensive unit with short range that wants to bounce around the midboard. More on that later.

There’s also a few cute stratagems that can be used on Cultists. The reactive move from Preserve The Idols is really flexible, and makes opponents stop and think because you can reactively move models that are very, very far away from their unit that just moved. Wretched Masses is cool because after you resurrect a Cultists unit, they can stay in Strategic Reserves as long as you want, giving you an additional Cultist unit that can walk onto the board in the opponent’s deployment zone turn 5 to help score things like Behind Enemy Lines. Worthless Chattel is also pretty cool because it lets you shoot Cultists out of combat, by either killing the opponent’s models or killing Cultist models.

I also want to say something that might surprise people: I basically never ever use the detachment rule to sacrifice Cultists for Sustained/Lethal hits. It’s a trap and should be reserved for a few really clutch moments. Your Cultists are pure gold. Why the hell would I sacrifice up to 6 of them for one or two extra hits? I suspect most people are playing this detachment poorly and I might do a future article about it. The biggest benefit of the Sustained Hits access is you can tell your opponent you can fire Overwatch with Sustained Hits and bluff them into not moving.

Being able to bring Cultists is the good part of the detachment, not sacrificing the Cultists.

Why Bring The Tyrant?

The Tyrant is a hidden gem in the Chaos Knights roster, and I’m so happy it got a points drop in the latest MFM so it will actually see tables.

I like units that bring something different to the table, and Tyrants definitely do something different. It probably should shoot a bit harder or have a few more wounds, but it is a great midfield bully. With access to Towering, Unrestrained Rage, and surprisingly decent range on its 2 main guns, the Tyrant’s main play pattern is bouncing between the backside of midfield ruins and shooting something from 17.9″ away. In fact, because Unrestrained Rage lets you also charge, you can go for “Fire And Fade” plays where you run up, touch a ruin with Towering, and then charge something behind you so you’re not touching the ruin anymore and can’t be shot. It’s so much fun.

Let’s make one thing clear: The Harpoon and Flamer loadout is the only real loadout for Tyrants. The long-range shooting loadout is just complete trash. “But Mike, you can sacrifice Cultists to give it Sustained Hits!” You expect me to sacrifice my screens/scoring units for an average of a single extra hit from both of its main guns combined? These made up people I argue with in my articles literally don’t even play this game.

I used the Tyrant as a pinball I unleash into the midfield to disrupt their gameplan, making it very difficult for opponents to stage because he could threaten to advance and touch midfield ruins and shoot over them with 2 powerful guns. His missiles are also pretty good, albeit inconsistent. I also have to keep reiterating how insane Unrestrained Rage is on a model that can move over terrain and models.

Cool little interaction to note: You might be wondering, “Don’t you have to take a Battleshock check after moving through walls? What if you fail? Then you can’t use your Advance and shoot stratagem!” The timing of the rule and stratagem are perfect. Here is the timing of that interaction: You roll your advance roll, see what you rolled, move through the terrain if you wish, then use Unrestrained Rage to be able to advance and shoot, then roll your 2+ Battle-shock test. There are literally 0 other stratagems to use on him so if he’s Battleshocked after that, I don’t really care. Unrestrained Rage is used “Just After” he moves, your Battle-shock check is “After” he moves, and it was FAQ’d that “Just After” effects come before “After” with no additional wording.

He might still not worth the points, but he really is a unique tool. I’ll go on the record and say that the Knight Tyrant is unironically good.

How the Hell Do You Write These Lists, Mike?

I’m glad you asked!

I write them using the ListForge app.

I know this seems like a bit of a forced plug but I promise I’m getting literally nothing from it. I just love seeing innovation in 40K spaces, and it’s the best listbuilding tool I’ve tried and I want it to keep growing and reward the dev for being so receptive to community feedback. After trying it on mobile, you can’t go back to other apps. I recommend checking it out. Here is the Android app and iOS app links. Happy list-building!

With a little love for my favorite listbuilder out of the way, let’s dive into the actual games.

Round 1: Imperial Knights (W, 83-55)

Imperial Knights List: Canis Rex, 5 Helverins, 5 Warglaives, Callidus Assassin, Inquisitor Coteaz

I’m going to leave the player’s name out as a courtesy because this game ended up being a bit uncomfortable, but it’s all relatively minor and I think I just caught them on an off day. I’m sure my opponent is a nice guy and friendly opponent overall! First, let’s talk about the game itself.

As I said in my last GT report, I’m a bit tired of seeing basically point-for-point this exact Imperial Knights list, but I can’t blame Imperial Knights players! Canis leading a horde of Armigers is an extremely strong list, and my vote for one of the strongest Imperium lists out there.

This was a game where the Tyrant truly shined! He completely flips this matchup on its head. Both offensively and defensively, Tyrants completely bully Armiger/War Dog profiles. Toughness 13 and a 2+ Save completely scam Warglaive meltas and Helverin autocannons, respectively. In return, the Tyrant can pretty reliably pick up 1 Armiger with the Harpoon and Flamer and potentially finish off a second with the missiles and melta. Canis Rex whiffed the one time he could shoot the Tyrant and after that he could never be removed from the middle objective.

I want to quickly talk about the game’s dynamics, because I got a bit bummed out. We started off super friendly! I hadn’t played this player before but his team generally speaking has a positive reputation, so when things started well I figured it was going to be fun all game. In the bottom of turn 2, my opponent gets a judge ruling he doesn’t agree with and the mood shifted.

Frankly the exact ruling doesn’t matter but I’ll include it for context anyway. What happened was it was his turn, and he made a comment about trying to hide from the Tyrant. Your intent is to hide? Awesome, let me help you. At the very least I wanted to warn him about its mobility so he wasn’t surprised when I moved it later. I showed him the places on the board I could see depending on my advance rolls. I pointed out that the Tyrant could touch the wall of a midfield ruin and see over it, so he couldn’t hide Canis behind that ruin. He didn’t agree that Towering lets you shoot over a ruin wall if you touch it. I said no worries, let’s grab a judge to confirm how it works. It wasn’t even a feelsbad of me shooting from an angle he didn’t expect because he wasn’t familiar with the rules, I was literally trying to help him understand the terrain in his turn before he moved. The judge agreed with me. We not only grabbed the TO, we pulled a Team USA coach from his game to come explain how Towering worked.

Unfortunately, the guy had a hard time letting it go and proceeded to get upset about it every few minutes for the rest of the game. After that it was like a different opponent, which is a bummer because before he got tilted he was a really friendly opponent! I got snapped at a few times for mundane 40K interactions which was not fun.

Overcoming tilt is an important skill in all aspects of life. I’ve been lucky enough to have had years of experience processing and overcoming tilt through poker. I think my opponent might have just been newer to tournaments and hasn’t been through common potentially frustrating experiences like judge calls they don’t understand/agree with yet. Let’s give him some grace.

Here’s one last lesson for everyone.

The player made a bunch of mistakes that had nothing to do with the ruling or hot/cold dice, and I would have been happy to point out mistakes after the game and help them improve. Instead, because things got uncomfortable, that didn’t happen. Remember in a previous article I talked about how being a friendly opponent is not only a good thing to do, but is literally in your own self-interest? This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about!

Let me make it clear one more time for anyone who missed it: This opponent seemed like a friendly guy. I would play him again! Don’t twist it as an awful game, just awkward, and only after the turn 2 ruling. I just promised everyone in my article about cheating a few months that I would start being more honest about my tournament experiences. Being all positive sets unrealistic expectations and can make people think there is something wrong with them if they have a difficult game because “Mike always has fun games”. Games like this happen. Thankfully after the game I had a great time grabbing lunch with a long-time friend visiting from out of town and some local Warhammer buddies, and we were on to the next game! When people talk about this article in their own communities or in comments about this article, please let’s keep the focus on the Chaos Knights part. Anyone trying to pile on to this opponent or bash them is completely unacceptable and against the spirit of Warphammer.

Tyrant Game Rating: 10/10

Round 2: Troy’s Blood Angels (W, 90-87)

Troy’s List: BA Captain with Rage Fueled Warrior, Jump Captain with Speed of the Primarch, Dante, Lemartes, Combi-Lt, The Sanguinor, Impulsor, 2×5 JPI, 6 Bladeguard, 10 Death Company Jump Pack Marines, 5 Infiltrators, 5 Sternguard, 3×3 Sanguinary Guard

Troy is always a great opponent and strong player, and this game was an absolute banger that truly came down to the wire.

There were a few dynamics that made this game very interesting. The first was that Blood Angels absolutely melt War Dogs like butter. Combined with their innate mobility and access to advance-and-charge, it is very difficult for Chaos Knights to exist anywhere near the midboard versus Blood Angels. The second dynamic is that Troy’s list had 0 real guns, which meant I only had to focus on playing around melee threat ranges instead of worrying about sight lines. And while his list melts War Dogs, all of his units that melt War Dogs are pretty expensive. If I can make sure Troy’s melee units sticking around to destroy a second War Dog after they melt one, they don’t actually trade as well as it seems.

I really wanted to go second but ended up going first. The funny thing was I think we kept rolling ties for the first turn rolloff and it took a few rolls until we knew who would go first. The Chaos Gods tried to protect me!

The game began with my Tyrant using the advance and shoot stratagem to shoot my Tyrant at an Impulsor, which made it’s 5++ invuln versus my harpoon and my other guns whiffed so it lived. You might think that the Tyrant ended up being a disappointment then, right? It actually did great!

The following turn it took a big chunk out of a Bladeguard unit. Later, it shot Dante dead. Most importantly, it tanked a charge from the Lemartes Death Company brick and lived on 3 wounds. I don’t know if the math is that the Tyrant dies on average dice with the buffs he had, but I felt like Troy rolled really cold on his Lethal Hits even with Hit rerolls which led to struggles with wounding. That was his most terrifying unit, so after it got stuck in front of my entire army, I used Unrestrained Rage to Fall Back from the Death Company and unload the Tyrant and finish it off with some Brigands and Karnivores. Despite going down to 3 wounds on turn 2 it actually lived until turn 5 because Troy’s list has a limited number of units and there was always one too many problems to deal with before getting to the Tyrant. When the Tyrant finally died, it took down a Captain in a clutch explosion, sealing the game. Troy played a really sharp game, and I wish this game was on stream because I’m sure if I rewatched it I would find a few small things we could have done differently that could have swung it either way.

Tyrant Game Rating: 7/10

Round 3: Brandon’s Ultramarines Vanguard (W, 77-70)

Brandon’s List: Calgar, Company Heroes, Phobos Librarian, JPIs, DevCents, Desolation Squad, 2×6 Plasma Inceptors, 6 Bolter Inceptors, 2×5 Infiltrators, 2×5 Scouts, Callidus

Much like Troy, Brandon is always someone I look forward to playing. He plays very well but is also easy to play with, and we had another great game.

This game got off to a very rough start. Turn 1, I advance and shoot the Tyrant to get an angle on 5 Scouts in a midfield ruin. The Tyrant shoots everything at the Scouts and kills 2. You can’t put a price on this level of damage output… actually, you can. It was 515 points. Let’s just move on to the next turn.

Speaking of the next turn, the Tyrant went from 100-0 after being shot by 2 Inceptor squads. I wish I were joking. The poor guy just completely evaporated to Oaths Of Moment. We all have bad days at work, but this game from the Tyrant was something else.

On the other hand, the Tyrant soaked up a ton of attention early, and helped my War Dogs get in position to do damage and score/contest Primary points. Because I played aggressively over the rest of the game, Brandon had to use Strike From The Shadows and the reactive Charge move stratagem every turn and he often didn’t even have enough CP to uppy downy units.

There was a really cool sequence this game that showcased the interesting interactions that happen when playing at a high level. I advanced and charged a War Dog Stalker into 5 JPIs on an objective to OC contest it. 3 of the JPIs were on the objective, and 2 were off the objective. Brandon saw a play to get more OC onto the objective, and used the Heroic Intervention stratagem to get 5 Infiltrators and the Phobos Librarian to charge into me and all get on the point. This meant that I had 8 OC on the point and he now had 9. I might be able to kill 1 or 2 models in melee, but his 2 JPI models off of the objective could still pile-in to get onto the point. After he heroiced the Infiltrators, I saw a play where I could charge my unit of 6 Nurglings into another unit, block basing points with the first few models, and then swing the remaining Nurgling models towards the JPI so they were closer to the JPI models off of the objective than the Stalker was. This prevented them from piling in towards the Stalker and adding their OC to the point, meaning at most Brandon would have 9OC on the point. I killed 1 Infiltrator with the Stalker’s melee, bringing his OC on the point down to 8, and the Nurglings held the 2 other JPI models off of the point. I went for a standard contest play, Brandon took it to the next level, and I had to take it to the next level in return.

The Tyrant was a total dud, but our Cultists did some valuable scoring work and we were able to hold on for a tight win. What a great game to end the day!

Tyrant Game Rating: 0/10

Final Thoughts

I’m going to be taking my Shadow Legion to the Rocky Mountain Open this weekend. To be honest, I’ve been too busy to really play it since it dropped last week, so I’m not expecting much. There’s also a few things I really want to do Sunday so there is a very good chance I drop unless I’m 3-0 after Saturday (and even then, I reserve the right to drop if I hear the poker game I want to play in gets really good). I’m very hyped for the detachment long term, just trying to set reasonable expectations. My plan is to hang out with friends and just have fun trying stuff out. If I can dodge getting paired into More Dakka, we’ll have 3 fun games!

Chaos Knights are an incredibly fun army. If you haven’t tried out Iconoclast Fiefdom or haven’t tried Tyrants recently, give them a shot. At the very worst, you’ll have a lot of fun. And in the best case scenario, you might even win a game or 3.

As always, have fun, stay safe, and may the Dark Gods bless your rolls! And seriously, check out the ListForge app.