Detachment Focus: Houndpack Lance (Updated November 21, 2025)

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Houndpack Lance from the Chaos Knights Codex.

Did you only start Chaos Knights this edition? Do you have 13-14 War Dogs ready to go? Do you have no idea what the hell an “Abhorrant Class Knight” is? Well this detachment is for you.

Changelog

• 2025-11-21 (Current): Updated with a new list
• 2025-06-07: Initial Publication

Detachment Overview

Plain and simple, this is your all war dogs detachment. It gives you character war dogs, enhancements for War Dogs, stratagems for War Dogs, and a detachment rule that buffs War Dogs. This will feel pretty familiar to veterans of Index Chaos Knights, but there’s some interesting nuance here that spices things up. Given the changes to War Dog datasheets and the improvement for TITANIC Chaos Knights, the prospect of going all War Dogs isn’t nearly as powerful as it used to be.

Detachment Rule: Marked Prey

At the start of your Command phase you select a unit from your opponent’s army and until the start of your next Command phase, all of your War Dogs get [SUSTAINED HITS 1] while targeting that unit.

This is an amazing rule for your little guys. Mathematically, Sustained Hits 1 is equivalent to +1 to hit so if you’re missing your BS 2+ Brigands, this is how you bring them back into play. The only downside here is one of your most effective War Dogs, the Karnivore, already has sustained hits so it doesn’t really benefit them. That said, you can use them to go after targets the rest of your army is already dealing with.

Detachment Rule: Keywords

In addition all your War Dogs become BATTLELINE and you must select three dogs in your list to gain the CHARACTER keyword, which allows one of them to be your Warlord, unlocking the possibility of an all-War Dogs army. Note that while this means that you can run all dogs, it doesn’t mean you have to, and it may still make sense to bring a bit knight to help buff your small guys.

Enhancements

As you may expect, all these enhancements can only go on War Dogs.

• Final Howl (20 pts): War Dogs within 6” of the bearer can re-roll 1s to wound. This is simple but veterans from 9th who remember the Helm of Dogs will recall just how strong this ability is. Re-rolls are hard to come by in Chaos Knights and this is a good one to have.
• Loping Predator (10 pts): Gives the bearer’s weapons the [ASSAULT] ability. This is purely a mobility boost, since there’s not a ton more you can do with this besides advancing and shooting. It could be nice for getting a thermal lance up close as a surprise, but it’s a bit outclassed by other options.
• Panoply of Cursed Knights (15 pts): Each time this War Dog is targeted with an attack, reduce the incoming AP by 1. This is a really solid upgrade but it’s an expensive investment to put on such a fragile body. That said, it’ll likely do its best work on a Karnivore to help keep it alive through a melee scrap since more of the big shooting that goes into your vehicles will be AP-3 and trigger your invulnerable save.
• Preyslayer’s Mantle (15 pts): This gives its bearer the Super-heavy Walker ability. This is the good stuff. This lets you go through walls and models in the movement phase (rolling a D6 to see if you Battle-shock), allowing your dog to get where it needs to be. Another great option for the Karnivore.

Stratagems

There are some really strong stratagems available in this Detachment. They’re all only usable on War Dog units, and all of them except for Vox-Howl cost you 1 CP.

• Vox-Howl (Battle Tactic, 2 CP): This targets a War Dog Character in your Shooting or Fight phase and forces enemy units within 6″ to take a Battle-shock test, while friendly Battle-shocked War Dogs within 6″ must take a Leadership test, and if they pass they are no longer Battle-shocked. You can only use this once per turn. This is a really nifty ability to help keep you scoring and getting your army ability online, and it combos well with the Dread aura. It’s particularly useful if you can throw it out in your opponent’s Fight phase to Battleshock them and ensure they can’t contest objectives on your turn.
• Hungry for Combat (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): In the fight phase, select two War Dogs in combat with the same unit. Until the end of the phase those War Dogs can only target that enemy unit, but they score Critical Hits on 5+. This obviously works for your Marked Prey target but is just generically good on a pair of Karnivores thrown at the same target, but the requirements to use this Stratagem are pretty high.
• Cunning Hunter (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Used in your Movement phase, just after a War Dog falls back. This is a simple Fall Back, shoot and charge Stratagem. It’s a great tool to have in your toolbox, allowing your shooty knights to get out of an inconvenient combat and allowing your melee knights to reposition to more juicy threats. Combine it with the Preyslayer’s Mantle to rush through your opponent’s lines to get to key targets.
• Animalistic Rage (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase or the Fight phase when a war dog that has not yet fought dies. Before you roll Deadly Demise, you can shoot or fight the thing that killed it. Keep in mind you will be bracketed when you do this, but free out of sequence shooting/fighting is always valuable, especially at 1 CP.
• Harrying Hounds (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): If an enemy unit ends a Normal, Advance, or Fall Back move within 9” of a War Dog, it can make a normal move of up to 6”. A flat 6” reactive move with no conditions for one CP is VERY strong. If nothing else it can make key charges harder, but there are a ton of ways to use this – moving onto objectives or blocking enemy movement through tight spaces are some of the best. It also combines with the Super-Heavy Walker ability to move through walls.
• Encircling Pack (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Pick a War Dog wholly within 12” of a board edge and put it in reserves. Yes this does allow you to bring it in turn 1, but most of the time your dogs are fast enough to get wherever this would get you anyway. Where this shines is late game when you need to reinforce a side of the table that’s folding, giving you more dogs to throw into the woodchipper.

Playing This Detachment

Playing this Detachment well starts with making good use of your Marked Prey Detachment ability. In some ways this is similar to picking a target with Oath of Moment – you want to pick something you’ll be able to destroy, but you don’t want to waste the ability on something you could have killed without the ability. That said, it’s usually smarter to pick the obvious target you need to eliminate first if you’re not sure, as there are few things worse than picking a Marked Prey unit and then failing to kill it because you didn’t commit enough to the cause. When you run this Detachment you’re almost always going to be taking multiple Karnivores, so the good news is that those don’t need Marked Prey to do their thing – it’s purely something your Brigands and Executioners will be focusing on.

One of the big changes to War Dogs from the Index was the drop in OC and losing additional OC when the units bracket. This means it’s much easier to steal objectives from War Dogs than it used to be, and that in turn shifts how they play – putting a single War Dog on an objective is no longer sufficient if you have lots of threats bearing down on you. Given you’ll be taking a number of Karnivores and Stalkers, your best play here is to use your speed to apply pressure early and often, screen out deep strike expansion, and drown your opponent in mid-size vehicular threats before they can respond effectively.

While there’s theoretically room for a big knight in this Detachment, the best of your big options – the double gatling Despoiler – only has a mediocre buff for War Dogs, while the Desecrator needs more help to be useful in his own right. This makes including a big knight in the Houndpack Lance detachment pretty awkward, and we’d generally suggest that competitive lists should focus more on going all War Dogs for the sheer volume of vehicles it gives you.

The key to this Detachment is going to be picking the right targets for your War Dogs, making sure you’re taking enemy units down efficiently and trading effectively. You want to avoid trading down at all costs and make sure that when you are losing War Dogs, it’s at a great cost to your opponent. Your worst nightmare is going to be an opponent that can casually pick up 3-4 War Dogs in a turn. Against those armies you need to prioritize those threats early, isolate them, and remove them. Remember that you can typically put three War Dogs into Strategic Reserves.

Strengths

• Great Buffs for War Dogs –  There’s an amazing suite of tools to help get your diminutive little guys into a brutal fighting force.
• Great Stratagems – Between access to a reactive move, a fight on death, and redeploy, all for one CP, this detachment does a little bit of everything.
• Hyper Efficient – War Dogs are cheap, efficient sheets for their points and this lets you flood the board with them.

Weaknesses

• No Support for Bigs – Most of the book’s support for War Dogs comes from big knight auras and this gives you nothing to help bring them to bear.

• Dogs Aren’t What They Used To Be – Gone are the days of Brigand/Karnivore spam and you’ll need a more diverse list to make this army work.

• No Marking for Karnivores – Karnivores are likely the top candidate for best War Dog and the detachment ability doesn’t really do anything for it. That said, there’s other good support here for them.

A Sample List

Houndpack Lance aren’t the most effective way to play Chaos Knights competitively – they’ve mostly fallen by the wayside as TITANIC knights have become very, very playable. That said, you can still make some noise with the army. Ramsey Ramsey took this list to a 4-2 finish at the LDXP Tacoma 2025 GT recently, and it’s a good example of what you’re working with when you run all War Dogs.

Ramsey's List - click to expand

There’s a mix of everything here – three Karnivores as characters with Preyslayer’s Mantle as the lone Enhancement – it’s the best of the options that fit – plus three Stalkers and two each of Brigands, Huntsmen, and Executioners. That gives you a lot of versatility and movement, and this is supported by a relatively standard Daemon Allies pack. The Plaguebearers and Beast are your backfield objective holders – The Plaguebearers sticky home when it matters, then amble forward, but they’re both Deep Strike options as well. Meanwhile the Nurglings act as screening units, speed bumps, and occasional scoring for things like Engage on All Fronts and Behind Enemy Lines.

Final Thoughts

This is a great twist on the all dogs formula. It’s a lot more sneaky than anything Chaos Knights have had access to before and presents a pretty unique playstyle. You lose some value by not getting the most out of the big knights here, but anyone who played Chaos Knights competitively during the Index times will likely already have the models necessary to run this Detachment.

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