A GT Report With Disciples Of Be’lakor, An Army That No Longer Exists. Yes, I’m (Semi) Serious.

People often say, “Don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened”.

If only life was that easy.

When Disciples Of Be’lakor were squatted in 10th Edition, I was honestly sad. Disciples Of Be’lakor were hands down my favorite army of all time. Honestly, they still are. The flavor and gameplay were everything I was looking for in 40K. If you sat me down and told me to invent a 40K army 100 times, I would just re-invent Disciples Of Be’lakor 100 times.

In another life, I would have really liked just doing actions and scoring points with Be’lakor.

But we’re not able to choose the hand we’re dealt. Sometimes things we love change. Sometimes things we love go away. When the Grotmas detachments were announced, I was really eager to see if Disciples Of Be’lakor were coming back. We now know that wasn’t the case. Every Chaos army (not you, Thousand Sons) got fun new rules, but none of them were Disciples. It’s possible there might be another Grotmas type rules release later in 10th Edition or another edition, but I’m not going to let GW hurt me again. I’ve accepted that Disciples Of Belakor might never come back as an officially supported Games Workshop army.

Oh, but one more thing:

If you thought Disciples Of Be’lakor not existing anymore was going to stop me from playing Disciples Of Be’lakor, you are out of your goddamn mind.

People often say things after their army gets nerfed like, “GW clearly doesn’t want me playing this army anymore, I guess I’ll put them back on the shelf”. Really, people? You’re going to let some freaking nerds in Nottingham tell you what to do with your free time? No disrespect to all the wonderful nerds of Nottingham, but that’s not how I operate here at Warphammer.

Even though Disciples Of Be’lakor have no official rules, I decided to try to recreate them as faithfully as I could in the framework of 10th Edition competitive rules. Powered by nothing but unyielding faith in both the power of the Dark Gods and the power of the Rule Of Cool, I took this frankenstein army to a competitive GT this weeked.

Welcome to the only Disciples Of Be’lakor tournament report you’re going to find in 10th Edition 40K. Let’s have some fun with this.

My Results

I always put the tournament result at the start so people know what to expect, and this writeup is no exception.

My Disciples finished 4-2, submarining to 27th out of 86 players. In a vacuum, I would have been disappointed by that result. But given that I took an army that doesn’t exist anymore, and only missed out on best CSM by 2 spots to someone who brought a point-for-point rip of Anthony Vanella’s recent GT winning list?* I can’t complain.

* I want to make it clear, there is literally 0 shade from me to this CSM player–it’s a really fun list, I’m sure he’s a really great guy because his Cheesemen team is full of great sports, and there is no shame in bringing a strong meta list to a competitive tournament!

More importantly, in terms of friendly and clean games versus good opponents, I went 6-0 and hope my opponents can say the same. I wouldn’t change a single thing.

This tournament also created one huge issue: Disciples Of Be’lakor are at a 67% winrate in GTs in 10th Edition. This is way outside the “goldilocks zone” of 45-55%. This means that GW will have no choice but to nerf Disciples Of Be’lakor. It’s hard to imagine what nerf they can deliver to an army that’s already been removed from existence. Given that it’s a Chaos army in a GW game system, I’m sure they’ll work hard to figure something out.

My 10th Edition Disciples Of Be’lakor List

For those of us who didn’t play in 8th Edition or 9th Edition, here is a brief recap of what Disciples Of Be’lakor was.

Disciples Of Be’lakor were an Army Of Renown (a unique army that didn’t fit into traditional codex armies) that let players combine units from Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, and Chaos Knights under Be’lakor’s bidding. Be’lakor was the centerpiece, tying the army together both in the fluff and in the rules. Because Be’lakor is the Lord Of Shadows, the army was was themed around being hard to shoot and providing shenanigans.

A traditional Disciples Of Be’lakor list was mostly Daemons, with 3 War Dogs tagging along and a CSM contingent to unlock some synergies. 10th Edition doesn’t let you build a list that is “mostly Daemons with some CSM allies”, so I had to swap CSM into the majority role, but with around 500 points of Daemons and around 500 points of War Dogs you can still recreate the spirit of the army.

When coming up with a Disciples Of Be’lakor tournament list, I decided to stick to a few key principles:

• Bring Be’lakor (obviously)
• Stick to the Daemons + Chaos Space Marines + Chaos Knights structure, with about as an equal a split between the 3 armies as 10th Edition would allow
• Look for any synergy between any of these 3 armies
• No named Characters besides Be’lakor (which mainly meant no Cypher, who is an auto-take in CSM otherwise)
• No Daemon Engines
• No Cult Marines (I’m glad I remembered this, because I had a Rhino with Rubric Marines in the list until the last minute)
• Theme my army around durability versus shooting, because that was one of the key themes of 8th and 9th Edition Disciples Of Be’lakor
• Bring 3 War Dogs, because that was the best part of previous Disciples Of Be’lakor

The only part of Disciples Of Be’lakor I couldn’t recreate was the God mark balancing act. For those who didn’t play Disciples Of Be’lakor in previous editions, you had to take an approximately equal amount of Daemon units from every Chaos god. I only have 175 points left to spend on Daemons after paying 325 for Be’lakor which means it is literally impossible to bring a unit from each God, so I just brought a couple units that made sense.

With those requirements in place and a lot of time messing around writing lists, here is what I brought to the GT:

Disciples Of Be’lakor List

• Daemon Allies
  • Be’lakor, First-Damned, The Dark Master, and The First Prince
  • 6 Nurglings
  • Beast of Nurgle
• War Dog Allies
  • War Dog Brigand: Havoc Launcher
  • War Dog Brigand: Havoc Launcher
  • War Dog Brigand: Havoc Launcher
• Fellhammer Chaos Space Marines
  • “Conductor of Shadows”, Terminator Sorcerer: Warlord, Combi-bolter, Familiar, Enhancement: Warp Tracer
  • Cultists
  • Cultists
  • 3 Bikers: Plasma, Icon, Power Fist, Chainswords
  • Rhino: Combi-bolters, Havoc Launcher
  • Accursed Cultists
  • 10 Possessed
  • Vindicator
  • Vindicator

Synergies

Do you remember that in the Disciples guidelines above, I wanted to find some synergy between the Chaos armies to help with the Chaos soup feel? Well, I did find one pretty cool one! The Terminator Sorcerer’s Death Hex ability for +1AP versus an enemy unit is not locked to attacks by Heretic Astartes units, so your allies can also get +1AP. In addition, the Warp Tracer enhancement to turn off cover on an enemy isn’t locked to attacks made by Heretic Astartes.

Add all that up together, and what do you get? AP6, ignores cover melta spears from your Brigands! More importantly but less humorously, AP3, ignores cover chaincannons from your Brigands.

This meant that Disciples Of Be’lakor Brigands have literally the highest AP possible in 10th Edition. You can technically get AP7 and ignores cover on a Stormsurge or Death Guard melta, but AP6 ignores cover is the same AP effect as any higher value because it means that it is literally impossible for even a 2+ save unit with Armour of Contempt to get an armour save.

Tactics

Let’s talk about the big man himself: Be’lakor.

Be’lakor’s main value is in providing an aura of 18″ Lone Operative aura to other Daemons. Obviously, in a Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Knights list, this effect is useless… right?

I thought about how to get the most out of this, and realized that this ability actually makes Be’lakor into an incredible Rapid Ingress piece! Because Be’lakor can Rapid Ingress 18.1″ away from the opponent’s biggest guns and be completely immune to being shot, he can come in very aggressively and set up excellent charges for the following turns. This means he can be completely immune to being shot, then move up 12″ and have a 6″ charge. His melee and shooting aren’t amazing, but they aren’t nothing, and he can definitely beat up units like Vehicles without invuln saves. Something like a full health Knight is way too tall of an order to expect Be’lakor to kill on the charge, but if we soften it up with shooting from Vindicators and Brigands first, Be’lakor can provide the killing blow.

The biggest issue with Be’lakor is that for his points, his datasheet is pretty awful. A lot of people don’t even run him in Daemons lists, where he provides some of the strongest synergies in the entire game. The good news is his Rule Of Cool actually transfers 100% over when used as an ally too, so he provided excellent value all weekend.

In terms of deployment, having a bunch of vehicles with 24″ guns means they’re competing for the same hiding spots and angles, so I always reserved either a Brigand or a Vindicator. I leaned towards a Brigand because Fellhammer Vindicators are very durable and don’t mind being exposed early as much, but reserved a Vindicator in the final round because I wanted all 3 Brigands on the board to go for OC contest plays. Be’lakor, the Beast of Nurgle, and the Conductor Of Shadows all started every game in deepstrike too.

It’s a small detail, but I’m also absolutely loving the single 6-man Nurgling unit over smaller 3-man units. There are a few huge benefits of the Nurgling brick. First, if they have other infiltrating units, the 6-man unit gives me more midboard space I can grab in a single drop before they can put the next Infiltrate unit out. Second, I really like deploying my Nurglings within 5.9″ of the center of the board so I can guaranteed score Area Denial even if I roll a 1 on their advance. The 6-man let’s me have one base ready to score Area Denial if I draw it while still trailing the other bases out to moveblock or tie stuff up if I don’t need to stay near the center. The other big part is that with 6 Nurglings, I can tag a ton of units at once, and have enough bases to block my own charge movement of other bases and move in different directions. And the 6-man Nurglings are enough beef that I don’t have to worry about a random semi-real melee unit intervening and killing them. I can’t tag a tank turn 1 if there is a random 5-man Jump Pack Intercessor unit nearby because they can intervene and have a decent chance to kill my 3 Nurglings. With the 6-man, I welcome them spending the CP to try to heroically intervene something. Hell, I can literally even charge and tie up actual melee units. To kill 6 Nurglings, they have to put around 30 wounds on my unit while being -1 to Hit. There are probably only a few units in their list that can do that. I love bringing the 6 Nurgling unit in Daemons, I love it as an ally, and it is an extremely key part of my gameplay. That unit literally won me the game versus a very hard-shooting Death Guard list, as you’ll see in round 4.

Is It Legal To Run Be’lakor As An Ally?

It’s crystal clear in the rules that it’s allowed, it’s just that most people haven’t closely read the rules interactions involved. Let me address the two parts of the rules that might trip people up.

Isn’t There a Battleline Tax You Have to Pay?

Here is the rule from the Daemonic Pact rules that let you ally Daemons:

“For each of the following keywords, the number of non-BATTLELINE units with that keyword you include in this way cannot be greater than the number of BATTLELINE units with that keyword you include in this way: Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, Slaanesh”

Be’lakor has none of these keywords. That’s rough for Daemon players because they miss out on awesome synergies, but makes him easier to ally.

Is There An Issue with His Rule Saying He Has to Be Your Warlord?

I have to give GW credit: They actually thought out this interaction ahead of time and provided a smart FAQ that explicitly clears things up!

Here is part of the Daemonic Pact rule: “None of these models can be your WARLORD”

Here is the GW FAQ titled Warlord Cannot Be/Must Be: “If one rule states that a model must be your Warlord and another rule states that that model cannot be your Warlord, the rules that prohibit that model from being your Warlord takes precedence”

The Daemonic Pact rule stating a Daemon ally can’t be your Warlord takes precedence over Be’lakor’s Supreme Commander rule saying that he must be your Warlord.

No one knows this FAQ exists because it never comes up 99.999999999% of the time, but I promise you it’s real and you can look it up in the app.

The legality of allying Be’lakor is 100% crystal clear. Now, whether it’s a good idea or not? That’s between you and the Dark Gods to decide.

But Why Disciples Of Be’lakor?

Are you serious? I just told you at the start of the article!

In all seriousness, I had wanted to do something like this before for the fun and fluff of it, but I was finally pushed to do by Horroar in the Warphammer discord. As you might remember from the last article, over Christmas day I organized a fundraiser by the Warphammer community for the benefit of the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, including donating myself. We raised almost $3,000 for the PCRF, which is an incredible amount that I’m still incredibly thankful for! We’re technically over $3,000 donated to the PCRF since some friends on the Obliterati team donated separately, but the exact amount doesn’t matter as much as the incredible energy that everyone brought to a great cause. The PCRF has received the highest rating possible from Charity Navigator for 12 straight years, and is an organization I researched heavily and am proud to support.

Horroar was one of the largest donors to the PCRF, and as a result got to pick what I ran at my next GT. I also want to give a thank you to Greg, who was another of the highest donors, and I’ll be doing a guide to the Scintillating Legion in an upcoming article as a thank you to him.

I don’t want to get “political” here so I’ll provide a very vague and very brief summary of why I wanted to support the PCRF: Billions of dollars and decades of efforts by some of the most powerful countries and people on the planet have been spent maiming these children, denying them medical care, destroying their mental health, driving them from their homes, and killing them. The least we can do is spend a miniscule fraction of that energy providing them medical care. If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend the book The 100 Years War on Palestine by Rashid Ismail Khalidi. If you don’t have the time for a slightly dense (but brilliantly done) book with a lot of historical details, then I’d recommend the book Recognizing The Stranger by Isabella Hammad. It’s very short but does an excellent job recontextualizing a lot of what you might know. I remember finishing Recognizing The Stranger so quickly that I literally didn’t even finish the glass of wine I had poured!

The Warphammer PCRF fundraiser remains open here: https://pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/warphammer40KPCRF. Please consider donating. Whether it’s $5 or $500, every dollar helps perhaps the most universal cause human beings can rally behind: Providing medical care to children in need.

I’m not going to link anything that could benefit me financially in this article. If you feel like supporting content like this, please instead direct your support to the PCRF at the link provided. I could not ask for a better thank you.

Takeaways From The Tournament

I went 4-2, and finished 26th out of 86 people. Let’s be real, you won’t hurt my feelings: that is not an amazing finish that’ll inspire people to drop Ultramarines or Starshatter and start running Disciples Of Be’lakor. Frankly, that’s the worst finish I’ve had a GT in 10th Edition in terms of percentile. This is probably not a great list. It’s a great list from the perspective of fun, but it’s not a great list. But I do want to point out what thing: By definition, that’s a better finish then about 70% of tournament 40K players have on average at a GT.

Let’s just do a thought experiment, the same one I talked briefly about when I did my article about podiuming a GT with my Traitor Guardsmen in Land Raiders:

If an anonymous person had posted this list in a faction discord or whatever and said they’re going to a GT with the goal of going .500, what kind of reaction would they have gotten?

Would they have gotten advice on deployment, how to play certain matchups, and advice on how to use any of the “weird” choices?

Or would they have gotten laughed at, condescended to by a bunch of very loud low-to-midtable players or maybe players that literally don’t even play, and told to swap the detachment and most of the ally choices? Honestly, they probably would have been discouraged so badly that they wouldn’t even try to take their Disciples Of Be’lakor to a tournament! And instead of an awesome weekend where they run their favorite army/models/whatever and try to play their best and grow as a player, they’re told to swap everything and buy a bunch of new models just to get the same 3-3 finish that they could have gotten if they ran Disciples Of Be’lakor or whatever random collection of lint they have on their shelves.

If the guy that wins Wooden Spoon and finishes 0-5 brought this list, no one would be like, “What kind of mistakes did you make that you can learn from and do better next time?” No, they’d be told, “Well you brought a casual themed list to a shark tank event, what did you expect?” But that’s the question they should be asking, because whatever the list had the potential for 4 more wins than they had.

So when people say things like “GW forced me to run this army I don’t like” or “GW forced me to stop running this army”, I think that’s self-defeating bullshit. This is a completely unforced error by everyone involved. Yeah, I’m sure since switching from Iron Hands to Ultramarines you’ve won 10 GTs and a slightly suboptimal subfaction was what held you back from international fame and 40K greatness.

And the worst part is how rude I see a lot of communities get when someone expresses excitement for “bad” things. I’ve seen situations where someone says “hey I want to try this unit”, a bunch of people just shit all over it and tell them to run another unit instead, and then one of the “pro players” in the community mentions that it’s fine and the conversation instantly stops. Where were all your firmly held opinions from a second ago guys? One snarky funny gif from a “pro player” and now you’re afraid to share your thoughts? I’ve got a few very specific communities in mind right now, but I’m not going to mention anything specific because not everyone there acts the same way and I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush.

And that’s why I created the Warphammer discord and community, and I’d love to see you there! I just wanted a place to hang out and talk 40K (competitively and not) with people that both have a high level of skill, but also just really enjoy experimenting and trying different things. This isn’t a “plug”, the discord is (and always will be) completely free and I get nothing out of it, I legit just think it’s an awesome community and want to share it with everyone. The link to join is available here: https://discord.gg/cHrPrv3N.

Let’s get on to the games.

Round 1: Brandon’s Vanguard Marines (L, 59-78)

Brandon is one of the stronger players in our area, and we always have good battles. This game was no exception.

I realized right away as I was deploying that I should have brought some guns that were longer than 24″, as it was way too easy to avoid my damage output, especially with a few Lone Operative effects in his list. If I were going to re-do this list (and had to keep all of the Daemons and War Dogs), I would swap 1 Vindicator and the Rhino for 2 Predators. I also had a very limited number of units that can do damage (and no, I’m not counting Possessed and their limp noodles in that group), and adding a unit that can be in a different place and do damage would have been awesome.

I also think my pacing was a little bit off. I’ll talk a bit more about this concept in the 6th game versus Chaos Knights, but in hindsight I don’t like the rate at which I exposed units. Because he had a devastating long-range shooting unit (Dev Centurions) and Lone Op units and all I had were awkward to move short-range guns, I should have been much more aggressive. I “got in the mix” one turn too late. I also don’t want to complain about dice, but just nothing was working out for us at all on a couple key turns. It happens. Well played by Brandon, and on to the next one!

Round 2: Phil’s Imperial Knights (L, 52-72)

Phil’s List: Canis Rex, 5 Helverins, 5 Warglaives, Callidus, some Necromunda looking dudes that hung out in the back all game

Phil was a very friendly opponent, and plays on one of my favorite teams in the Colorado area. He was nice enough to put up with some grumbling from me about the matchup, as well as some compliments from me on his beard. His army was painted well and we had a nice chat afterwards. I was rooting for Phil over the rest of the event.

Okay, on to the game: I feel like I’m missing two big things about Imperial Knights.

First, I see people talk about how IK are the “big Knight army”, as opposed to Chaos Knights who are the War Dog army.

And then every single time I’ve faced Imperial Knights in 10th, it has been point-for-point this exact list. The last time I played versus Imperial Knights in a GT, it was Canis Rex, 5 Helverins, 5 Warglaives, a Callidus, and some cheap Imperial Agents chaff unit. The last time I played versus Imperial Knights, it was a TTS game versus Canis Rex, 5 Helverins, 5 Warglaives, a Callidus, and some cheap Imperial Agents chaff unit. And then this game is versus this exact list. Are IK heading the same direction as CK, with an emphasis on Armigers instead of larger Knights? If so, I have to give IK players credit for coming up with an extremely spicy list archetype. Having to face a swarm of extremely high damage OC8 little guys is much more difficult than dealing with a few big Knights! And Canis Rex is just an egregious datasheet. Having to take 11 saves from his 4 damage gun onto my Vindicator was hilarious.

I also keep seeing online that Imperial Knights are a bad army, and I genuinely just don’t get it.

They get Eldar rerolls and a Feel No Pain on their entire army. Their version of Dread Hounds is way better and can affect an unlimited amount of Armigers. Being to get Eldar rerolls on melta spears is one of the most insane damage sources in the game. An army-wide Feel No Pain is just an amazing rule to have. The Armigers and Canis seem well-costed. They have lots of solid ally options. They also have the huge advantage over Chaos Knights of not having to waste their time rolling all those useless Havoc Launcher shots that burn a ton of clock time and barely even kill Cultists. Genuinely, why are IK considered so bad? This feels like an army that if I played it, I’d have a lot of fun with it and talk on Warphammer about how underrated it is.

For the record, speaking of mistakes instead of complaining about lists: Even in the picture above, I see a mistake. I should have swapped the Vindicator on the bottom and one of the Brigands. I mainly wanted the Vindicator to defend against plays where he puts a single Armiger on the part of the objective close to the wall where the Nurglings are and I can’t get angles to it. If I have a Brigand there, he has to keep several Armigers on the objective since I can contest one, and maybe even kill one and contest one so I take it unless he holds it with 3 Armigers. But also, why am I so concerned about contesting his expansion? He has 42 OC over there, he can have it. I should have focused more on defending my expansion objective and less on trying to fight over the whole board. I needed multiple turns of moveblocks to defend against OC8 contests. I did some micro stuff well (for example, putting Nurglings on the part of the terrain Canis could touch so he can’t toe it and shoot the whole board) but I give myself a low rating for big picture strategy this game.

Round 3: Matt’s Eldar (W, 86-63)

Matt’s List: The Khorne looking Avatar, the Avatar That Jumps Around, 3x War Walkers, 2x Fire Prisms, lots of little elves

Matt had great energy, and was clearly here for a good time above all else. We chatted a few times the following day, and I was really happy to keep hearing that he was having a great time playing at the event.

Losing a 12-wound Be’lakor to a Fire Prism’s overwatch was brutal, but that’s just the fate dice and Eldar rerolls life sometimes. I had plenty of other breaks go my way, including Vindicators being surprisingly durable versus bright lances in cover.

I remember very little about this game because I was starving at that point, but I appreciate Matt travelling to join us for our GT and hope he comes back again sometime!

Round 4 : David’s Death Guard (W, 94-58)

List: Mortarion, 10 Plague Marines with all the toppings, Cultists, 3x Predator Destructors, 2x Bloat Drones, Nurglings, Rotigus, Despoiler with Gatling Cannons

Now this is a list right here! I liked a lot of what David was going for in his list, and we played a very friendly game. He had good instincts for the game, and I’d happily play David again sometime.

We were playing Purge The Foe. I deployed my Nurglings and Rhino with Accursed Cultists very aggressively, with the logic that going second on Purge The Foe is so beneficial that I need to make sure I have a great turn of scoring or disruption if I go first. This ended up going very well. David deployed smartly to avoid taking any damage turn 1, but had his Predators and Knight Despoiler very close to the line and didn’t have a melee threat set up to intervene if they got tagged. I was able to take strong advantage of this, tagging the Despoiler and a Predator with my Nurgling brick turn 1 and using the charge to moveblock the other Predators from getting a key angle up the board.

Because of moveblocks and playing angles, the Despoiler never got to shoot a single time before it was destroyed by a Vindicator, War Dog Brigand, and Be’lakor combined on turn 3. That’s right – units from 3 different Chaos armies teamed up to take down the biggest threat in the opponents army.

If you don’t love that, you don’t love Disciples Of Be’lakor!

Also, can I take a second to talk about just how pathetic how awful Mortarion is in melee? He is an incredible synergy piece and great value for his points, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t mind Mortarion receiving a weapons upgrade like Dreadknights received at some point. Give him 7 strike attacks for the Nurgle flavor at the very least. I tagged Mortarion with a Vindicator, a single Possessed, and a Rhino on the top of turn 4, and he wasn’t able to fight his way out over 4 fight phases.

Round 5: Jeff’s Votann (W, 85-54)

Jeff was a lovely opponent, with a truly enviable ability to have a laugh at his own bad dice rolls. His Votann looked great, and I’d happily play him again any time.

I think the key factor in this game was that Jeff moved very defensively early to avoid getting shot, including moving literally backwards with a lot of his heavy hitters, and this let me get really great board control and just constantly expend resources to attack his Primary all game. To his credit, he said he had made a mistake himself later, and if we played again I think it would be a really close game. This was also the game that my cold dice from the first couple rounds decided to turn around with a vengeance, including rolling box cars on damage after Jeff failed a couple of saves on a Land Fort from a Vindicator. Sometimes you’re the bug, sometimes you’re the windshield.

I just want to focus on a really cool thematic moment turn 3, similar to the one from round 4. On the top of turn 2, I had staged my Possessed and 2 Brigands behind midfield ruins, while Be’lakor Rapid Ingressed in on the bottom of turn 2. Jeff put some various dwarves and dwarf vehicles on the objective closest to me to hold it, and set up some screens. Little did those dwarves now that not 1, not 2, but 3 different Chaos armies were coming to kick their ass next turn.

On turn 3, the combined forces of the Warp opened up on those Dwarves, as 10 Possessed, Be’lakor, and a War Dog all came crashing down onto that objective. Can you imagine being those Dwarves? You’re just sitting there, mining for gold on that objective or making fun of elves or whatever Dwarves do, and suddenly all sorts of Chaos monstrosities appear and create hell all around you. Once second you’re singing about Rock and Stone, the next second Be’lakor appears, points directly at you, and a huge horde of Possessed come screaming towards you.

If this stuff doesn’t get your chaotic heart excited, then you’re playing the wrong army!

Round 6: Freyja’s Chaos Knights (W, 80-63)

List: Stalker with Aura of Terror, 6x Brigands, 6x Karnivores

Freyja was a friendly opponent, and it was nice to end the event with some Chaos on Chaos internecine violence.

They did a lot of things well in the game, but I think there was a War Dog pacing issue that I was able to capitalize on.

Here is the single biggest piece of advice I can give Chaos Knights players: Do a rough estimate of the number of War Dogs your opponent can kill a turn if you expose War Dogs in certain places. Maybe the number is 2. Maybe the number is 7. It really varies on the list and board state, and you can’t get an exact number because it depends on many factors (especially dice), but come up with a rough estimate.

Once you’ve come up with that number, make sure you never expose exactly that many War Dogs a turn. You either want to be way above that number, or way below that number. If your opponent can kill 4 War Dogs a turn and you expose 1, you’re wasting their damage. If your opponent can kill 4 War Dogs a turn and you expose 12, you’re gaining board state and your own damage output in exchange for taking damage. But if your opponent can kill 3-4 War Dogs a turn and you’re making them deal with 3-4 War Dogs a turn, you’re maximizing their damage output and gaining nothing.

If Freyja had disrespected the damage of my Disciples instead of playing “smarter”, ironically I think this would have been a solid Chaos Knights win. This is especially true given that we were playing with the Stalwarts and Terraform mission rule. All of those War Dogs (all of which are Battleline) being able to both shoot and do actions gets around the main weakness of a Knight army which is limited activations, and their damage output is quite good into the units that I brought. It was still a well played game overall, and I was happy to see they won best Chaos Knights in the tournament!

Final Thoughts

I want people to leave this article with a few thoughts.

First, I want you to remember how cool Disciples Of Be’lakor were. It’s one of the best designed and most thematic armies I’ve ever seen, and I really hope GW considers giving them rules support again in a future update.

Two, I hope you at least consider making a small donation to the Warphammer PCRF Fundraiser. Even $10 would go a long way towards helping an amazing organization. The link is available here: https://pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/warphammer40KPCR. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who contributed.

Third, and most importantly from a 40K perspective, I just want you to go out and have fun playing units and armies you like! I promise it’ll be okay.

As always, have fun, stay safe, and may the Dark Gods bless your rolls!