Games Workshop has revealed the model for the new Knight Ruinator for Warhammer 40,000, a war mech built on the same corrupted chassis as the existing Chaos Knights, but armed with an inventively awful arsenal of original weapons. In stark contrast to the long range Imperial Knight Defender that the firm showed off last week, the Ruinator is armed with a huge breaching drill, a colossal flamethrower, and some armor piercing missiles for good measure.
GW revealed the massive new Warhammer 40k model on the Warhammer Community website on Monday. This atrocity of the warp forges will receive rules in the upcoming Chaos Knights Codex, which the firm also showed off in the same article – though it hasn’t yet confirmed when this new 40k Codex release date will be.
Imperial and Chaos Knights share many models, and both armies rely on a small number of elite units without infantry support. The contrast between last week’s Knight Defender and this week’s Ruinator suggest that greater emphasis is being placed on the one big difference between the two Warhammer 40k factions: loyalist Imperial Knights lean slightly towards a more balanced playstyle, while traitor Chaos Knights prefer melee combat.
The Warhammer Community post announcing the new Knight does give a few hints about its armament. Its flamethrower is a “darkflame lance”, which is “a match for the awesome three-barreled weapon on the Knight Tyrant”. We expect this to have an 18 inch range, D6 Attacks, with S8. AP-1, and dealing two Damage, with the 40k abilities Torrent and Ignores Cover.
The twin-barrelled flamethrower on the Knight Acheron has that statline with 2D6 attacks, while the tri-barrelled gun on the Knight Tyrant has 3D6 attacks. A single barrel version of the gun, with a single D6 attacks, seems reasonable.
The small rocket pods mounted to either side of the Knight’s torso – doomed to be nicknamed either ‘nipple guns’ or ‘armpit guns’ – are “terrorpulse missile launchers”. They fire “swarms of armour-piercing missiles big enough to burst a Space Marine“. We wouldn’t be surprised if the paired guns each have D3 attacks, the Blast ability, Strength somewhere between six and eight, an AP of minus one or minus two, and Damage two.
Then there’s the Fellbore, about which GW gives no information, but it looks like a siege drill. We expect it to have rules that make it better at cracking vehicles, monsters, titanic units, or fortifications.
The Ruinator also has a belligerent special rule: before the battle starts it will pick a target unit, and it will spend the game “hunting it down with murderous focus before butchering their victim and moving on to their next unfortunate plaything”. We’ve seen similar abilities on the Tyranid Norn Emissary and Kroot Farstalker Kinband, providing extra abilities or re-rolls when targeting the chosen prey.
GW plans to reshuffle how it’s selling Chaos Knights. It will offer two packs, both with the sprues necessary to build a Knight Desecrator or a Knight Rampager. One box will come with the extra parts needed to build a Knight Ruinator, while the other will contain the components for the existing Knight Abominant.
Excited to add more affronts to the Omnissiah to your renegade warband? Already have a substantial fallen Knight House with a tally of atrocities to its name? We’d love to see your pics and hear your tales in the official Wargamer Discord community.
Think that a Chaos Knight looks like an absurdly huge modelling project to put together? Just check out this papercraft Titan maniple for something even more impressive!
Source: Wargamer
