Games Workshop reveals new Imperial and Chaos Knights detachments

Games Workshop used its latest Knights preview to make the split between Imperial Knights and Chaos Knights feel sharper than ever. The May 18 Faction Focus was billed as a two-for-one special, with three new detachments for each army, and it spelled out that these once-shared roots now produce “wildly different rules and play styles.” For Knights players, that matters immediately: the preview was not just about fresh datasheet toys, but about what each faction is supposed to do on the table, and which side of the Long War or the Imperium’s war machine your collection wants to become.

On the Imperial side, Dominus Foebreakers put the biggest chassis front and center. The detachment gave friendly Dominus Knights +1 to hit against units in a terrain area, a clean answer to the kind of obscuring and cover play that can blunt super-heavies on crowded boards. Blessed Plate pushed the durability question even further by raising a Dominus Knight’s Toughness to 13, which matters in a game where a Knight Castellan’s thundercoil harpoon is Strength 24 and common anti-tank guns like lascannons sit at Strength 12. The article named the Knight Castellan and Knight Valiant as Dominus-class examples, and the message was plain: Imperial Knights are being steered toward a role as towering fire bases that still keep working when the fight gets messy.

Questor Forgepact took Imperial Knights in a different direction, and it may be the preview’s clearest identity check. It let Knight armies fight beside Adeptus Mechanicus allies, including Tech-Priest Dominus, Tech-Priest Manipulus, Skitarii Marshal, Skitarii Rangers, and Skitarii Vanguard, with ally caps of up to 250 points in Incursion, 500 in Strike Force, and 750 in Onslaught. Its Sacristan Pledge restored one lost wound in the Command phase, or D3 if a Tech-Priest was nearby, while nearby Mechanicus units re-rolled hit rolls of 1 and, within 6 inches of Imperial Knights, wound rolls of 1 as well. That is not just a list-building perk; it pushes Imperial Knights toward a disciplined combined-arms battle plan, the kind of force that feels at home holding a line through Armageddon’s grinding ruin.

Chaos Knights, by contrast, looked built to spread pressure and corruption rather than support a noble war engine. The revealed detachment names, Bastions of Tyranny, Hunting Warpack, and Iconoclast Fiefdom, already point in different directions, from Knight Tyrants and battle-shocked foes to roaming War Dogs and mixed forces backed by Damned allies. Iconoclast Fiefdom specifically allowed mutants, cultists, and heretic soldiers, and later faction-pack summaries tied it to Codex: Chaos Space Marines allies. If the Imperial preview sold a machine supported by servants of Mars, the Chaos side sold a warped household dragging thralls into the fire.

That is why this reveal feels like a real edition reset for Knights, not a cosmetic one. Later codex listings showed Codex: Imperial Knights as a 112-page book with four detachments and 12 datasheets, while Codex: Chaos Knights came in at 104 pages with four detachments and 11 datasheets, both with Crusade rules and one-use app unlock codes. The preview suggested a future where collectors are no longer just choosing between loyalist and heretic paint schemes. They are choosing whether their Knights march as an armored spearhead with Mechanicus support, or as a brutal, serf-haunted force that turns Armageddon’s broken battlefield into a feeding ground.