Detachment Focus: Iconoclast Fiefdom (Updated November 19, 2025)

In our Detachment Focus series we look at the game’s Detachments in detail, how they work, how to play them, and a sample list for running them.

The Grotmas 2024 Detachment for the Chaos Knights gave them a new way to play the army, letting them take allied units from Chaos Space Marines along for the ride. The Iconoclast Fiefdom Detachment lets Chaos Knights include DAMNED units and can sacrifice them for a benefit. So if you’re looking for a way to incorporate hordes of serfs who worship these unholy war engines in your army, look no further.

Update Log

• Updated (Latest): 2025-11-19 for the Codex and balance updates
• Initial Publication: 2024-12-09

Detachment Overview

The Iconoclast Fiefdom is all about chaff and rabble supporting their Chaos Knight masters. This Detachment lets you bring along DAMNED units from Codex: Chaos Space Marines and gives your Chaos Knights access to a rule very similar to Dark Pacts, only forcing you to sacrifice those followers to gain your power boosts instead of taking mortal wounds. Chaos Knights have had access to Daemons but never had what Imperial Knights had – namely, very cheap ally units to do actions and hold objectives. Chaos Cultists and Accursed Cultists are the key pieces here – the former gives you the cheapest way to sticky objective and the latter can be a scary melee unit in their own right.

The big change to this Detachment was been with the Codex – the detachment benefits a lot from TITANIC Chaos Knights being playable, but it’s unfortunately mostly outclassed by the Infernal Lance Detachment, which offers a better version of what this one can do.

The Video Version

If you’re interested in a video version of this review, you can find it here:

Detachment Rule: Dreaded Masters

The Iconoclast Fiefdom detachment rule has several parts. 

Wretched Thralls

You can bring DAMNED keyword units from the Chaos Space Marines codex, with the amount scaling by game size:

• Incursion: 250 points
• Strike Force: 500 points
• Onslaught: 750 points

For players unfamiliar with CSM, Damned units refers to all the cultists and mutants in the book. These are generally cheap chaff, with the notable exception of Accursed Cultist bricks. These all have interesting abilities, but the ones you’re most interested in are going to be standard Chaos Cultist Mobs, as those are dirt cheap units of infantry with the ability to sticky objectives. Traitor Guardsmen are also interesting in that they have actual shooting attacks and come with OC 2, and the Cultist Firebrand is interesting as a cheap character who can give a Cultist unit Ld 6+ and can force Infantry units to take a Battle-shock test by hitting them with his flamer. Note that a Damned model cannot be your Warlord.

Dread Tyrants (Aura)

While a friendly Damned unit is within 9” of a Titanic Chaos Knight, your Damned unit can re-roll hits and wounds of 1. This doesn’t matter that much on regular cultists, but it’s pretty solid if you decide to bring Accursed or Traitor Guardsmen.

Dark Sacrifice

Chaos Knights can make a Dark Sacrifice whenever they’re selected to shoot or fight. When you do, pick a friendly Damned unit within 6″ and they take a Leadership test. Pass and they lose D3 models. Fail and they lose D3+3. Then your Chaos Knight’s weapons gain either [LETHAL HITS] or [SUSTAINED HITS 1].

Dark Sacrifice is, in most ways, a watered down (read: bad, mostly) version of the Malefic Surge rules from the Infernal Lance Detachment. Gaining LETHAL HITS/SUSTAINED HITS 1 is still amazing, particularly on a twin gatling cannon despoiler, but the need to sacrifice cultists to do it makes the ability very expensive. Wounds on knights are cheap; comparatively each Cultist you lose is about 6 points, so if you do this on a Despoiler three times chances are good you’re essentially increasing that unit’s cost by 20-30 points.

That’s not great, but it’s not nothing, either. Your value here is still in Cultists being able to sticky objectives for cheap, and potentially having an Accursed Cultist brick to smash its way across the table and cause problems. Big knights being playable helps this detachment a lot.

Enhancements

There are two standout enhancements here, and then a couple ones that you can take or leave. 

• Profane Altar (20 Points) – Your Chaos Knight gets both Sustained Hits and Lethal Hits when you make a Dark Sacrifice, but your Damned unit always loses the maximum number of models (flat 3 or flat 6, depending on the Leadership check). This is a pretty high penalty, but having both benefits at once can be a huge swing in damage output. This is something you want on a double gatling or double battle cannon Despoiler.
• Pave The Way (15 Points) – At the start of the Declare Battle Formations step you can choose three of your Damned units gain the Scouts 6” ability. This is incredibly useful, and solves one of the biggest problems you’ll have with this army – namely that Cultists move 6″ while your bigger knights are much faster. You don’t really want to castle as Chaos Knights, and this can help you get out there making sacrifices sooner.
• Tyrant’s Banner (5 Points) – When performing a Dark Sacrifice, your Chaos Knight can choose any visible Damned unit to take a Leadership test instead of a Damned unit within 6”. This is another great way to avoid having to wait for your footsloggers to catch up, and it’s dirt cheap besides, so it’s often going to go in just to eat your final points.
• Diabolical Resilience (35 Points) – Your Chaos Knight has a 6+++ Feel-No-Pain and ignores and Movement/Advance Roll/Charge Roll modifiers. Most modifiers to movement don’t tend to affect vehicles but that’s a nice add-on to the 6+++ Feel No Pain, which functionally gives you 20% more wounds to work with. That’s a lot of points to pay for this ability, but with the wound increase on Chaos Knights in the Codex update, it has more value than it used to. If you’re taking this, you want it on a Lancer or Tyrant, where starting with more wounds increases its value. A Lancer effectively has around 34 wounds with this.

Stratagems

This Detachment offers a very good set of Stratagems to work with, giving you tools for improving both your Chaos Knights and your DAMNED chattel. There’s a surprising amount here that either keys off Damned units or benefits them directly.

• Avenge The Masters! (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – When a Chaos Knights unit from your army is destroyed, you can mark the unit which destroyed it and your DAMNED models gain the LETHAL HITS ability when attacking that unit. This is really only worth doing if you have a unit of Accursed running around, as the damage output of the rest of your DAMNED options is pretty weak.
• Wretched Masses (Battle Tactic, 2 CP) – Used in any phase when a non-Accursed Damned unit is destroyed. You can add an identical unit (sans any attached Characters) back to your army, in Strategic Reserves. You can only use this once per game. This is an amazing stratagem to have in your arsenal, especially considering you’ll likely be killing at least one of your own Cultist units over the game through the use of the Detachment rule.
• Soul Hunger (Soul Hunger, 1 CP) – After a Chaos Knight unit fights, you can use this. If that Chaos Knights model killed a model in the fight phase, it can heal D3 wounds, or D3+2 if you killed something that was battle-shocked. While the D3 is unreliable, it’s a great way to keep your war dogs topped up throughout the game and it combos with the Diabolical Resilience Stratagem to give you back wounds that are slightly more valuable.
• Unrestrained Rage (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Movement phase on a Chaos Knights unit which just finished an Advanced or Fall Back move. It can still shoot and charge this turn. This is by far, without exaggeration, the best stratagem Chaos Knights have access to. Keeping your knights from being tied down is massive and the ability to present a turn one threat with a Karnivore or Knight Lancer is massive. Don’t sleep on this one.
• Worthless Chattel (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Allows you to fire at enemy units within engagement range of a Damned unit, with the side effect of maybe killing some Damned models along the way (each time your opponent loses a wound, they roll a D6 and on a 4+ one model from your unit is destroyed too. This is a super flavorful stratagem and pretty useful to shoot at some locked down units. Especially useful in conjunction with the next Stratagem.
• Preserve The Idols (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – When something moves within 9” of a Chaos Knight unit, a Damned unit within 6” of your unit can move 6”, but it has to end its move closer to the enemy unit. This is a bit restrictive but a super powerful stratagem for protecting your knights from melee threats. Reactive moves are also just some of the most powerful stratagems in the game just due to being able to control the table. This is great for screening against your knights, moving to block key melee threats from crashing in. 

This is a very solid set of stratagems to work from. Specifically Unrestrained Rage, Preserve The Idols, and Wretched Masses. If there’s any downside its that it’ll be hard to save the CP for Wretched Masses because you’ll be using the other two so often. The big thing missing here is a dedicated defensive stratagem like Diabolic Bulwark, but you can make do with what’s here.

Playing This Detachment

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: This is in many ways worse than Infernal Lance. There you only lose D3 mortal wounds and only if you fail the Leadership test, and you get a choice of three buffs, one of which is the one here in Iconoclast Fiefdom. That means the value here comes from adding Cultists and giving them re-rolls and well, Infernal Lance armies are doing just fine with Nurglings, Plaguebearers, and Beasts of Nurgle, thanks.

That said, the Codex update earlier this year was a huge boon for Iconoclast Fiefdom lists because it made TITANIC Chaos Knights playable. In particular, the Despoiler, Atrapos, and Lancer all have tons of play, and the Despoiler really likes getting SUSTAINED HITS 1/LETHAL HITS, however it can get them. That means that a modern Fiefdom list likely runs three big knights, two to four smaller knights – usually a mix of Karnivores and Stalkers – and a mix of Cultists and Damned units with the remaining 450ish points.

Your plan here is to use one unit of Cultists as your home objective holder while the others run along and sticky other objectives and perform actions while acting as fodder for buffing your big knights. Because you have an advance and charge stratagem you can make use of, you’ll typically want a Lancer or melee knight option in this list as your third big knight over taking a third Despoiler – besides, if you wanted to run triple Despoilers, you may as well just run Infernal Lance anyways. The ability to Fall Back and charge is also great on Lancers, who love being able to tank shock over and over for free.

While you’re playing you’ll want to be mindful of your CP use, as it’s typically going to be worth holding 2 to bring back a dead Cultist unit the first time they die, whether it’s to enemy attacks or your own avarice. You don’t necessarily need to feed your units Cultists all the time and because they cost points you should be mindful of when and how you do it. The upside here is that unlike Infernal Lance, you won’t have to worry about softening your own units to get the buffs or potentially dying, so you can eat Cultists for buffs even when you only have a wound or two remaining. Just be sure to watch your spacing so you can ensure that you have Cultists around when you need them.

Strengths

• Cultists. Cultist units are a fantastic addition to the Chaos Knight gameplan, giving you cheap fodder units which can sticky objectives and perform actions. Also, Cultists have the GRENADE keyword.
• Offensive Output. The ability to get SUSTAINED HITS/LETHAL HITS on your knights is very good.
• Movement Tricks. This Detachment gives you some really powerful movement tricks between the reactive move on Cultists and the Advance/Fall Back and Charge Stratagem.

Weaknesses

• Sacrifice. To get the most out of this detachment, you’ll be killing your own units. That makes getting your offensive buffs very expensive.
• Defense. There aren’t really any defensive buffs here, and that can make it hard to keep your big knights on the table.
• Outclassed. Losing D3 mortal wounds with a choice of three different buffs in Infernal Lance is just flat out better, and that Detachment outclasses this one in most ways. 

A Sample List

List building for this detachment is interesting. As we mentioned earlier, these lists typically run three TITANIC knights supported by 2-4 War Dogs and a smattering of Cultists. Whether Accursed are worth it depends heavily on their current points cost and whether you want to include a Dark Commune. The list we’re looking at is the most successful Iconoclast list to post results since the Q3 dataslate, and it largely has the same gameplan as Infernal Lance.

John took this list to a 4-2, 19th place finish at the Tennessee Elite Open major in mid October, beating Leagues of Votann twice, Gladius Space Marines, and Combined Arms Astra Militarum while losing to Eldar and Shadowmark Talon.

John Shaw's List - click to expand

The three big knights here are two double gatling Despoilers and a Lancer, all decked out with Enhancements. Diabolical Resilience on the Lancer improves its survivability significantly, and the Lancer makes a good pick for this army with the ability to advance/fall back and charge. It’s more likely to range ahead alone, while the Gatling Despoilers really want to stay near Cultists all game so they can fire off SUSTAINED FIRE gatling guns at anything they see. With four – and likely five – units of Cultists to work with, there’s plenty of meat here to get more damage output, and the Karnivores and Stalker give the list some real mobility and the ability to range wide with threats.

Final Thoughts

Basically, this is Infernal Lance where the only option is more dakka and the Cultists take the place of Nurglings/Beasts/Plaguebearers. That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s just not quite as good, unfortunately. You can still do very well with an Iconoclast list, and the points you save on your chaff allow you to take an extra War Dog, which can be surprise opponents who don’t have the resources to handle one more small vehicle. Overall this Detachment got better when the Codex came out, but it’s more a niche pick in a world where Infernal Lance exists.

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