Thoughts and comments on Knight Abominants?

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Greetings,

TLDR version: I’m curious regarding people’s opinion and thoughts regarding Chaos’ unique knight, the Abominant. 

 

Longer version: A while back I got myself the Chaos Knight Army Box, thinking that knights are cool I want one! 

It would make a kickass ally for my Black Legion!

(After reading the codex) I want an army of these!
 

With the above in mind, what would be a good build for one medium/Abhorrant and two small/War Dog knights? Is the Abominant a good start, for stand-alone as well as allying purposes? It looks cool, surely that’s a good start?

[killersquid]

Competitively, Wardogs are a better competitive fit, they can hide behind obscuring terrain, are very fast, and are objective secured. 

 

I don't run an abominant myself, I prefer the desecrator (WS2, and much cheaper). But, the abominant can be quite resilient. If you give it the Favour Blessing of the Dark Master, put it in an infernal House (for warp surges), and give it the Winds of the Warp psychic power, you can get it to the point where your opponent cannot hit, or wound it better than a 4+, or or get any re-rolls in attacks vs it, and it can have a 5+ save to ignore suffered wounds. Not bad. 

 

I also like the idea of making the abominant a Khorne knight, it then loses it's psychic abilities, but gets +1 WS and Attacks, so will hit on 2's, and will get 12 attacks with it's melee weapon. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Its been a while since I played chaos knights and thought it was a good addition to the list - its defensive psychic power(s) is/are quite good giving it a resilience that the other knights of its class don't have, and the ability to do fairly consistently damage across more than one phase is great against models with a "wound-per-phase" cap like C'tan and Ghazgul.  Haven't tried to layer on as many effects as killersquid suggests, though... you can see my list with one here.

 

I echo killersquid in thinking that war dogs are better point-for-point for the reasons he gives, but I think an abominant is one of the better choices of knights of its class - a shooty despoiler would probably be my first choice, but the abominant would be my second.

 

How many points are you looking at for your abhorrent with 2 wardogs?  Do your have any preferences for chaos allegiance?  Is that your entire list, or do you plan on fielding them alongside other chaos forces?

 

For wardogs, I quite like the executioner to hold obejctives in your deployment zone, with the mixed melee/shooty ones for going up against the enemy - I like to mix up my anti-infantry and anti-tank weapons, such that I give the claw to my chaincannon models and the sword to my meltamodels, but I can see the argument for specializing as well.

Edited March 10, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Annatar Giftbringer]

I'd like to say thanks and apologize for the near-necromancy level of tardyness in my response... 

 

Life decided I shouldn't have time for hobby last spring, and then the rumors about a new edition made me not wanna commit until after, and then life kicked me in the nuts again, and... 

 

Right, returning to the original question, but updated for the new and (still somewhat) shiny edition! 

Looking at the parts included, I can build two Karnivore/Brigand/Stalker War Dogs, and I belive I have one of each weapon option for the Abhorrant chassis, though the box is intended for an Abominant. No wait, there might not be any chassis turrets included?

 

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with them, I'm thinking at first perhaps they can be either a small stand-alone army or ally with my Black Legion in a mixed list, and then take it from there. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Welcome back!  I'm glad life has calmed down enough for now for you to be rethinking this project.

 

Actually, I don't think you get any of the Despoiler options with the Abominant - you just get all the weapons from both the abhorent class knights (so, the options for the Abominant, the Rampager and the Desacrator).  For the Despoiler options, you need to pick the imperial knight kit (the Knight's Preceptor is probably best, as it has all the same bits as the crusader/warden/gallant kit plus some that can go in your bits box).  On the plus side, if you kit bash the imperial and chaos kits together, you can get 2 still very chaos looking knights - you can see mine where I did that here and here.

 

Note, if you pick up a box of Helverins you will have the bits to build any of the 5 types of wardogs in any of their configurations - and again, the imperial and chaos kits can be kitbashed to create 4 models that still all look pretty chaosy - here are mine.

 

And a nice thing about all these kits is that they can all be magnetized to allow the swapping of many of the various options.

Edited January 15 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Ah yes, my bad - you are absolutely correct! 
I saw a bunch of weapons and "joy extrapolated" in my head 

 

There are no carapace weapons, no gatling, battlecannon or melta included for the big guy. 

 

Do I want/need any of those for my first 1-2 Abhorrents though? And same for the War Dogs?  

 

I suppose magnetizing is the way, but since I've never dabbled with that before I was thinking perhaps just build this box "by the book" and look at magnets if and when I expand? Or is that a stupid reasoning?

 

Without having played Knights and just skimming their rules, it appears at first glance that I have some solid options available within just this box, for a core. 

 

Edit: Oh, and thanks

 

Edited January 15 by Annatar Giftbringer

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Well, there is no right way or wrong way to go about things - basically, whatever works for you is the right way for you.

 

With the dedicated chaos kits, there aren't really any options within a given class of abhorrent - the Abominant, the Ravager and the Desacrator all come with 1 set loadout each.  So, if you build any given one "out of the box" that really isn't a problem - you are just then stuck with that particular class and can't field a different one without buying and building (and for many but not all players, also painting) another kit.  Magnetizing simply gives you the option of swapping between classes, though the abominant to other classes conversion requires a bit more work, as you either need to make the tail removable or be okay with fielding the other classes with a tail.

 

That said, magnetizing the arms to allow for the swapping of arm weapons is pretty easy, so in my view is worth the effort - for me, the versatility is worth it.  For you it might not be.   Actually, its not a bad place to start with magnetization if that's something you want to learn how to do - its both pretty simple and easy to remove and redo if you get it wrong the first time. 

 

As for the wardogs, I think there is a greater benefit of magnetization, given both the ability to swap weapons within the classes, and the fact that the various classes aren't as distinct as the classes of abominant.  The wardog arms are similarly easy to magnetize - the carapace weapons aren't particularly difficult either, but do require you to have a small drill if you want the weapon to sit flush with the carapace.

 

As for the Despoiler, I would strongly recommend magnetization given the vast array of weapon choices and you never know what particular combo will be best in any given edition.

 

Now, if you aren't keen on magnetization, I suppose the best way to figure out what models to build is to hash out a list first and build those models work best in the list.  So perhaps that might be a good starting point and I'm sure the folks here would be happy to help you tweak an army list or 2 if you were to post them in this subforum.

 

 

Edited January 15 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Apologies, I thought I had replied here…

 

out of the Chaos-specific designs, it looks like Desecrator/Rampager lends itself well to share a body via magnet? 
 

It looks like it’s just the mega cannon/one melee weapon that differs? 
 

I have gotten hold of some magnets. They might be too small for such large items though. 

Yes, list ideas looking for suggestions will be posted as soon as I get a wee bit further with some projects!

 

Oh, and before I forget: the Imperial Canis Rex kit works well for making Chaos Despoilers, right? 

Edited March 7 by Annatar Giftbringer

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, the desecrator/rampager are the easiest to make swapable, because its just the 1 arm that is different between the two (so only the laser cannon and the chainsword need to be magnetized).  The only thing that makes the Abominant any more work is needing to do both arms and what to do with the tail.

 

The bigger the magnet the better IMHO (provided its smaller than the arm joint)- while smaller magnets may technically hold the part in place, they will be less tolerant both in terms of not getting the two surfaces exactly flush and with the arms falling off if you move or pick up the model.  It might be possible to use 2 smaller magnets side-by-side in place of a single bigger one, but it would be harder work and likely prevent the arm from rotating.

 

And yes, the Canis Rex/Knight Preceptor has all the same parts you need - indeed, its the kit GW uses on its webstore page for the Despoiler, you can tell as it a) has the pilot and b) has the sprue with Canis's funky gun on it.  If you can't find a Canis/Preceptor kit, the Crusader/Gallant/Warden kit will work (though, these days I think those aren't a different kit anymore but share the same kit as the Preceptor), it just might not have the pilot and the funky gun, which would go into your bits box anyway.

Edited March 7 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Thanks! 
while I’m happy the Chaos models aren’t locked behind unique character, I do like the pilot model, so I’ll gladly

take one!

 

Definitely gonna need larger magnet if and when I start magnetizing knights… 

 

Looking forward to start tackling them as soon as some other projects are take care of, thanks for the help!

Edited March 17 by Annatar Giftbringer