STARTING A CHAOS KNIGHTS ARMY IN 11TH EDITION: THE DARK HOUSEHOLDS RIDE OUT
Chaos Knights offer the fastest route to a menacing army in 11th edition: a handful of towering, corrupted war engines painted as one fallen household. These are the traitor nobles — Knight suits twisted by dark pacts, hung with trophies and trailing warp-flame — and as a collection they share the Imperial Knights' great gift: a complete army in five or six models, except yours gets spikes. If your painting taste runs to rust, tarnished brass, glowing eyes and heraldry gone rotten, no faction rewards it better.
The first box
Start with the War Dog kit. These smaller engines are the household's hunting pack, the box builds multiple weapon variants, and a pair of them teaches you the whole Chaos Knights method: big armour panels in sub-assemblies, a base coat you can weather brutally, and details — trophy racks, stitched banners, too many eyes — picked out last. Settle your household scheme here. Blackened steel with a single sickly accent colour is classic and very forgiving.
The second hunt
- A second War Dog box, because the hunting pack is the army's core and the variants keep each build distinct.
- Your first big Knight: the Abhorrent-class kit builds the towering profiles, including the Knight Abominant and the Knight Rampager — one a warp-screaming sorcerous engine, the other a frothing melee monster. Pick whichever matches your household's flavour of awful.
Recommended: War Dog Karnivore
The centrepiece
Your Abhorrent-class Knight is the centrepiece by default, so give it centrepiece treatment: full corruption effects, weathering down the legs, glow effects around the eyes and vents, and a base that tells a story — crushed masonry and an unlucky loyalist are traditional. This single model will carry your army's whole identity, and it's worth every extra evening you give it. Build it after the War Dogs, not before — your skills will have caught up to your ambitions by then.
The new edition, without the rumours
Points and datasheets have been refreshed for 11th edition, and with so few models in a Knights list, small changes matter more here than almost anywhere — check current points before deciding whether your list wants another War Dog or a second big Knight. Starter-style boxes rotate too; if a Chaos Knights-flavoured one exists when you begin, it's usually the best value on the shelf.
Purchases to defer
- A third big Knight before the first is painted. The dark gods reward finishers, not hoarders.
- Chaos Space Marine allies "for objectives" — that's a second army wearing a trench coat.
- Every weapon-arm magnet scheme you saw online; build one loadout, play, then decide.
- More trophy bits. The sprues already give you plenty of skulls. You have enough skulls.
The household's dark ledger
Fallen houses keep meticulous rolls of their damned, and yours should too: log each kit the day it arrives and record it honestly as boxed, built or finished. With an army this small, an all-finished collection is genuinely within reach — few things in this hobby feel better. For the complete catalogue of engines and their histories, see the Chaos Knights faction page under Data.