We first begin with the most famous of Traitor Knight Households - House Devine of Molech. This is the first time Games Workshop introduced Daemon Knights into the setting, and fittingly enough, it was for Epic. This is also the very first mention of The Battle of Molech, penned by Gavin Thorpe - yeah, he's been around in Warhammer 40,000 for over 30 years now (I believe he joined Games Workshop in 1993)! Truthfully, I'm not a big fan of his novels, but the only one I really like was Luther: First of the Fallen. I actually like Corax: Soulforge as well. Look, I know he's not the best Black Library author, but I have nothing against him, and he comes up with some really cool lore sometimes.
Like the Battle of Molech, which really becomes one of the most pivotal moments of the Horus Heresy. I'm actually surprised Black Library asked Graham McNeill to pen the novel for it (Vengeful Spirit in 2014) instead of Gav Thorpe. Since Gav was the guy who came up with this whole thing in the first place, I thought it would be worth seeing his take on the story he conceived almost 20 years ago.
By now, most people should be familiar with the story behind House Devine. Formerly led by Cyprian Devine - the High King of Molech - his son, Raeven betrayed and killed him to ursurp his throne. Raeven and his consort and sister (don't ask), Lyx, and his mother, Cebella, are all part of this Slaanesh cult of the serpent god that...did crazy things. They also imprisoned and tortured Raeven's older half-brother, Albard, for some reason. Who am I kidding, it's because Graham McNeill wants to reinforce the point that they are evil.
As evil as Raeven is, when he piloted Banelash (his Knight armor) into a forest, the serpent god, Fulgrim, attempts to tempt him and fails. Because he is a Noble Knight pilot, and thus has the mental fortitude to resist the insidious whispers of Chaos, along with the ghosts in his Throne Mechanicum or something. Somehow, Fulgrim succeeds in corrupting Banelash's Throne Mechanicum, but that has no effect on Raeven. Unfortunately, when Raeven returns, Albard breaks free and kills him, Lyx and Cebella, taking over Banelash. Worse, Albard's suffering during his captivity under the torment of his stepmom and half-siblings have left him half-mad, and thus lacking the resilience that Raeven has, he succumbs to the Slaanesh magick that has woven its way into Banelash's Throne Mechanicum, courtesy of Fulgrim. Thus, when taking control of House Devine (all of whom are also corrupted, unlike Raeven, as they indulged in depravities in their Cult of the serpent god), he hallucinates of a dragon and is basically hypnotized into slaying it. As it turns out, that "dragon" is actually the Loyalist Imperator Titan, Paragon of Terra, and Albard's Knights are able to get under his void shells and fell the mighty Titan. The resulting catastrophic explosion kills many of the Loyalists, and with the now insane and clearly Traitor House Devine attacking from the rear, the Imperial forces are swiftly routed by Horus Lupercal's treacherous hosts.
This was basically the introduction of what would be known as Daemon Knights. Unfortunately, as with the case regarding Imperial Knights, when Epic sort of died away, these Daemon Knights also vanished along with their Loyalist counterparts and wouldn't surface for another two decades. Funnily enough, their absence was explained away in the Imperial Knight codex in 2014.
Basically, the Battle of Molech during the Horus Heresy was mentioned once more, as a callback to the old 1995 White Dwarf #190 article by Gav Thorpe, but...um, apparently, "only a handful of Knightly houses have been corrupted by Chaos" and the "innate conservatism of the Knightly Houses has made them resistant to the lures of the Chaos Gods," and therefore Daemon Knights are "extremely rare." That's why you don't see Chaos or Daemon Knights on the tabletop. Only Imperial Knights exist, because they are highly resistant to Chaos, and don't fall as easily, unlike those Heretic Astartes and Traitor Legions!
That all changed with the introduction of 8th edition and Renegade Knights.
First introduced in 2016 (okay, so 7th edition, a year before 8th edition), featuring the Litany of Destruction - once the noble Knight Gallant Living Litany - Sir Balthazar of House Terryn, piloting the Knight Paladin Ever-Stalwart, attempted to halt the Litany of Destruction's rampage on Tellerax Prime. Unfortunately, Balthazar was defeated and Ever-Stalwart was nearly destroyed during the battle.
Two years later, in 2018, the second edition of Imperial Knights: Renegade was released, and this time, Sir Drantar of House Taranis, piloting the Knight Crusader Red Might, was charged with the Litany of Destruction's...uh, destruction. The plot point has been left hanging since then. The last I heard, Drantar and Red Might clashed with the Litany of Destruction on Dharrovar, a fallen Knight world, and that was back in 2018 in the release of the 8th edition Imperial Knight codex. In Chapter Approved, released during early 8th edition, Renegade Knights became their own Faction, separate from Imperial Knights, and had their own Stratagem. Trail of Destruction, in contrast to the Loyalist Knights' Rotate Ion Shields. Fittingly enough, this would distinguish between the two Factions - Imperial Knights would be more defensive and durable, whereas Renegade Knights focused more on the offense and raw power.
However, the Litany of Destruction is pretty much the first plastic Chaos Knight model, though Forge World has in the past released a few resin upgrades of its own as far back as 2015.
However, before we explore the present, let's return to 1995, with the advent of the Slaanesh War Machines and the introduction of Daemon Knights. These are probably no longer canon, but in 1995, we had "separate" Knight types for Chaos, and they were dedicated to Slaanesh. That means they impose a -1 modifier to hit rolls, similar to holo-fields that protected Eldar Knights. There were three types of Slaanesh Daemon Knights: The Hell-Strider, the Hell-Scourge and the Hell-Knight (no, not the demon from DooM).
The Hell-Strider is the smallest of the Daemon Knights, but still stands many times the height of a man. I'm guessing they are supposed to be the counterpart for War Dogs eventually, or perhaps a smaller variant of the Questoris chassis. Hell-Striders are extremely mobile, able to flush the enemy out of cover with their powerful but short-ranged weaponry. Apparently, they are armed with lascannons and melta-beams.
According to their rules, they are simply Vehicle/Walker, which means they are not Titanic in modern 40K. So yeah, definitely precursor to the War Dogs (who are often armed with a thermal spear, which is pretty much the melta-beam).
The Hell-Scourge is one of the larger Slaanesh Daemon Knights. They are machine-predators, the perfect hunters who mercilessly run down their quarry with bounding strides from their elegant, powerful legs. Apparently, Hell-Scourges are stealthy, launching ambushes from previously unseen positions. As one appears and the targets attempt to turn their weapons to bear on its blurred form, others will attack from all sides, scything through armor and flesh with their massive Castigator cannons.
Hell-Scourge Daemon Knights are in constant communication with each other, being linked telepathically in a manner akin to pack instincts. This allows them to launch exceptionally well coordinated attacks, outflanking the enemy with ease.
Also, Hell-Scourges - unlike Hell-Striders - are actually super heavy Knights (Knight being a type that returns in Horus Heresy 2.0, as opposed to simply being a Super-heavy Walker). In other words, they are Titanic (or Super-heavy in Horus Heresy/6th and 7th Edition). I'm assuming the Castigator is the foundation for what will later become the Cerastus Knight Castigator in 2014. Armed with the Castigator bolt cannon that can annihilate hordes of infantry and even threaten light tanks, as well as their (flank) speed, the super-heavy Hell-Scourges might have inspired the design for the Knight Castigator, similar to how the Cerastus Knight Lancer was clearly redesigned using the original Knight Lancer from the 1990 White Dwarf #126 as the base.
Hell-Knights are one of the most specialized types of Daemon Knights. They are equipped with a rapid-firing thermal lance, which is fairly short ranged but can pierce through any armor with relative ease. They are also super-heavy.
There is a reference to the Battle of Kado. A huge Chaos army invaded the Hive World of Kado, and while the Imperial army defended the capital from Fiends, Daemonettes, Tzeentch Firelords and Khornate Lords of Battle (I assume Lords of Skulls), a hundred Hell-Knights infiltrated the massive underground transport network of the Hive. Eradicating any opposition they encountered, they emerge into the main streets of the hive, killing thousands of citizens and even annihilating the Adeptus Arbites who attempted to stop them.
Fighting their way to the surface, the Hell-Knights emerged within firing distance behind the Loyalist Legio Crucius and fired their thermal lances, destroying a whole battle group - including the Imperator Titan, Praeco Deictus.
There are also references to Slaanesh type Titans, such as the Questor Scout Titan and the Subjugator Scout Titan.
The Subjugator Scout Titan is a daemon engine and a small Slaanesh Titan, allied to the Emperor's Children and armed with sonic weaponry and the Tormentor cannons - psychically charged weapons that kill their victims with unbearable agonies, leaving their bodies charred by twisted energies. They also come equipped with a pair of Hellslicer battle claws, resembling those on Fiends but on a much larger scale.
Fortunately, they're easily taken down because their armor is only as good as a Dreadnought's (which, for a Titan, is pitiful).
Questor Scout Titans, on the other hand, are Slaaneshi Titans slightly larger than the Subjugators, and have thicker armor. It is fast, and is armed with a pair of rapid-firing Tormentor cannons.
...that said, I don't think any of these guys show up again...
Anyway, despite that little line about Daemon Knights being rare in the 6th edition Imperial Knight codex from 2014, Chaos Knights have been showing up with increasing frequency. In 2019 - 5 years after the launch of the Imperial Knight codex - they finally saw the release of their own codex for the first time.
Yeah, with this awesome trailer in 2019, Chaos Knights were teased, and later that year, a full codex - along with a brand new model - was released. The Knight Despoiler kit allowed Chaos fans to assemble a Questoris class - now called Abhorrent class - Knight with Chaos heraldry, spikes and all of those Chaos bits for the first time in plastic, as well as offer a new option.
The Knight Desecrator.
The counterpart to the Knight Preceptor, the Knight Descrator is armed with a laser destructor - generally a weapon mounted on Titans - that is capable of destroying a tank or even a rival Knight in a single volley from long range. Ouch.
Aside from that, though, the range of the Chaos Knights was pretty much restricted to just being a mirror to their Loyalist counterparts. The War Dogs were pretty much...Chaos Armigers. The Knight Despoiler was a Questoris Knight that you can equip however you want. The Knight Rampager was pretty much a better Chaos Knight Gallant, with a Warpstrike claw instead of a Thunderstrike gauntlet. The Knight Tyrant was a Chaos Dominus Knight.
Even the division is pretty much the same. Infernal Houses are pretty much Dark Mechanicum-aligned Knight Houses. Iconoclast Houses are the counterpart of Imperial-aligned Knight Houses, pledging their allegiance to one of the Four Chaos Gods (Or Chaos Undivided), Daemon Princes (Be'lakor) or a Chaos Space Marine Legion, or just being their own tyrannical thing. Dreadblades are Freeblades. And Idolators are Sacristans. Forget all the fancy wording, edgy stories and purple prose, that pretty much sums up Chaos Knights and their range.
Yeah, unlike the Imperial Knights, who have six "different" Questoris Knight classes (Gallant, Errant, Paladin, Warden, Crusader and Preceptor), two Armiger types (Warglaive and Helverin) and two Dominus Knight types (Castellan and Valiant), Chaos Knights only had a single War Dog type, three "different" Abhorrent classes, and a single Knight Tyrant type. Effectively, they only have half the range of Imperial Knights.
Lorewise, though, they are taking into account the sudden increase in Chaos Knights appearing everywhere. Not only have there been Chaos Knight Houses all along, the appearance of the Great Rift has seen entire Knight Worlds consumed into the warp and spat out as Daemon Worlds, their once noble Knightly Houses now corrupted and twisted to the whims of dark gods. Or, like House Korvax of Korvosi, once Kolossi, the homeworld of House Raven. Even the once Noble scions of House Raven - those who remained upon Kolossi when it was spirited away by Be'lakor into Nihilus and the warp in the aftermath of Warzone Charadon and the slow, tainted demise of the Forge World, Metalica - have been twisted and corrupted into the scions of House Korvax. Yikes. That explains the sudden increase of Chaos Knights on the tabletop.
Also, thanks to their new 9th edition codex in 2022, Chaos Knights also saw an explosion in their range.
The introduction of the first psychic Knight - the Knight Abominant, released alongside new variants of War Dogs - effectively doubled their range in a single stroke. The electroscourge appears to be inspired by Banelash's whip-like weapons from Vengeful Spirit by Graham McNeill. Though I suspect Graham meant to emulate the whole serpent motif of House Devine, Fulgrim and Slaanesh, which was why he gave Banelash a whip, but...yeah.
Anyway, along with the Knight Abominant, the War Dogs are now split into five types. The War Dog Executioner is pretty much the Armiger Helverin and the War Dog Huntsman is the Armiger Warglaive. Nothing new here. However, the new War Dog kit allows you to build three more variants of War Dogs - the War Dog Stalker, armed with an Avenger chaincannon and a melee weapon of your choice, the melee-dedicated War Dog Karnivore, and the dual-gun platform War Dog Brigand who's pretty much an Armiger version of the Knight Crusader. These three new variants can swap their heavy stubbers out for a havoc multi-launcher, but they can't take meltaguns, while the original two War Dog variants can't take the havoc multi-launcher for some reason.
Along with a Chaos Knights Army Set that gave you the new Knight Abominant and two War Dogs, as well as the codex, Chaos Knights players were in for a treat in 2022.
However, this being a retrospective, the story doesn't end here. I'm going back to the Horus Heresy to look at instances of Daemon Knights or Traitor Knight Households. After all, House Devine was not the only Traitor Household, and we need a reason to justify why Knight Houses are fighting or clashing against each other in the lore, and why many of them are on the Warmaster's side, especially for Forge World's Horus Heresy game, which has expanded to include Knights in 2014. The release of both the plastic kits and the codex for 6th edition, as well as Forge World's own resin kits - the Cerastus Knights and the "Mechanicum" Knights (Magaera and Styrix) in 2014 meant there was a need to incorporate these popular models into the game, as well as flesh out details in the lore to explain why there are so many Knights on both sides of the conflict.
In my article on Mechanicum-Oathed Vassal Knight Houses, I mentioned House Atrax, which was a Knight Thrall-House effectively enslaved by Archmagos Draykavac, the unfortunate House Morbidia that was bound to Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal and followed him to Heresy while serving under Legio Mortis. There was also House Aerthegn, who like House Atrax, were subordinated to the Traitor Forge World, Cyclothrathe. To sum it up, there are many ways in which a Knight House may fall to the Traitor cause, whether it is because they are enslaved Thrall-Houses or bound to their oaths to pledge their allegiance to a specific Traitor Legion, such as the Sons of Horus, or even as punishment where they are condemned to eternal servitude to the Fabricator-General of Mars.
One of the more famous Traitor Knight Houses is House Malinax (the archenemy of my very own House Yato - though I doubt they care at all about us), which was founded shortly after the incorporation of the Forge World, Xana, into the Imperium as part of the realignment of native Xanite armed forces to better serve the Great Crusade.
The Malin-Qatlu Scion Bloodline - a regressed Knight House that was lacking a homeworld of their own during that time, and in possession of only a few operable Knight armors - formed the basis for this new Knight House, provided by Xana with fresh machines and bound by blood and oath to the Lords of Xana. Brought back from the edge of extinction, the newly established House Malinax would serve with distinction during the Rangdan Xenocides, escorting the Titans of Legio Vultorum and the Taghmata Setna and Taghmata Scoria during the Great Crusade.
When Horus Lupercal turned Xana to his cause during the Horus Heresy, House Malinax was declared Traitor along with its masters, and elements of its forces aided the Warmaster and his allies in a number of key battles across the galaxy. As befitting a Knight Household founded upon a powerful Forge World such as Xana, House Malinax was well supplied, its contingents having access to rare Knight patterns. Drawing upon such technologies, House Malinax was capable of bringing superior firepower against rival Knight Houses and even threaten isolated groups of Titans.
House Vextrix is featured in both Adeptus Titanicus and the Chaos Knights codex. Their homeworld is Daxos Gemini in the Segmentum Obscurus, and discovered by Explorator fleets dispatched from Mars. They became fervent believers of the Cult Mechanicus, forging strong bonds with Mars, and thus were utterly loyal to Fabricator Kelbor-Hal, marching at his behest at the feet of the Titans of Legio Mortis and serving as his enforcers. Therefore, when Kelbor-Hal declared for the Warmaster, they followed willingly, purging their homeworld of Loyalist elements and pledging their allegiance to Horus Lupercal. Serving as support for Legio Mortis, they were assigned to missions by the Fabricator-General, including their participation in the war in the Belt of Iron.
10,000 years later, House Vextrix is recognized as an Infernal House, having welcomed the corrupting influence of the Dark Mechanicum. Cabals of Idolators craft warp-infused armaments, engine cores powered by warp entities and mechano-sorcerous rune cogitators in forges and arcane weapon shops for their patrons. The Knights of House Vextrix launch campaigns to uncover repositories of knowledge dating to the Dark Age of Technology or acquire heretical xenos machinery, as well as seize hoarded archeotech from radical Forge Worlds.
I think that's pretty much about it for this Retrospective article. After reading through all this and doing so much research, I think I might rewrite the lore for my homebrewed Knight Household (House Yato), maybe even retconning a few stuff and renaming their homeworld (so that it wouldn't be so confusing). We'll see. Till then!
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