Hunting Warpack: The 11th-Edition Chaos Knights War Dog Spotting Detachment

Once per battle round, per army, in your Shooting phase you can select one visible enemy unit within 12 inches of a friendly WAR DOG unit; that enemy unit has +6 inches detection range. The rule then prints its own restriction: this detachment has the WAR DOGS tag and cannot be taken with another WAR DOGS detachment.

Read the effect carefully. It makes the enemy easier to detect. It does not buff your shooting. This is a spotting detachment, and its payoff arrives through whatever else in your army cares about detection, not through the rule on its own.

Read the throttle carefully too. It is once per battle round, not once per turn. A battle round contains both players' turns, so you get one use across the pair, not one each. That halves the number most people assume.

The rule needs a War Dog within 12 inches of the target, which means the spotting is done by the model that is furthest forward and most exposed. That is what a RECONNAISSANCE force disposition looks like in practice.

The pack's position. Page 3 carries the banner UNIQUE: WAR DOGS directly above the HUNTING WARPACK heading, and the detachment rule itself ends with the sentence forbidding a second WAR DOGS detachment. Both are unambiguous and both are first-party.

The Munitorum Field Manual's position. Version 1.3 shows no active unique tag on this card and instead carries two annotation bands: UPDATED and UNIQUE TAG REMOVED. It shows the same pair on Houndpack Lance.

Our stance. We assert the tag, because the pack prints it in two places and is a current-day document. We do not assert the restriction, because the newer official document appears to have removed the thing the restriction depends on. Whether Hunting Warpack plus Houndpack Lance is legal is unresolved, and we do not claim to know.

Why this matters concretely. Hunting Warpack is 1 DP and Houndpack Lance is 2 DP. One plus two is 3, exactly a Strike Force budget, and both are War Dog detachments, so the arithmetic invites precisely the army whose legality is in question. It has its own warning page.

The mirror does not settle it. A community rules mirror keeps the pack's WAR DOGS sentence in this detachment's rule, but it is one version behind the Munitorum Field Manual for this faction, so it cannot yet reflect the removal. It is agreeing with the older document rather than casting a second vote.

What is unambiguously legal. Pairing this detachment with any Chaos Knights detachment other than Houndpack Lance, because no other one carries any tag under either document. Confirm in the Warhammer 40,000 app before a tournament.

Insensate Bloodthirst (1CP, Fight phase, when an enemy unit targets a friendly WAR DOG unit). That unit has Feel No Pain 5+. Note the trigger: it is the enemy targeting your unit, not your unit being selected to fight, so this is playable on your opponent's initiative as well as your own.

Leash of the Masters (1CP, your Shooting phase, when a friendly WAR DOG unit has shot). Those attacks do not prevent the unit from being eligible to start an action. Shoot and then score, on your cheapest models.

Stalking Focus (1CP, your opponent's Shooting phase, when an enemy unit targets a friendly WAR DOG unit within range of an objective). Ranged attacks against that unit have minus 1 Armour Penetration until the attacking unit has attacked.

The objective condition on the third one is worth noticing, because it is a slightly odd fit on a RECONNAISSANCE detachment: this stratagem protects a War Dog that is holding ground, not one that is hunting. Do not plan on it covering an advance.

Soul-spoor Auspicator Upgrade (15 points). HUNTSMAN unit only. This unit's ranged attacks have +6 inches Range. HUNTSMAN is carried by exactly one datasheet, the War Dog Huntsman.

Snarling Rivalry Upgrade (10 points). EXECUTIONER unit only. This unit's ranged attacks have [IGNORES COVER]. Again exactly one datasheet, the War Dog Executioner. At 10 points it is the cheapest enhancement in the faction.

This is unusually restrictive and it is the main thing to check before taking the detachment. Both enhancements are locked to a specific War Dog variant. If your War Dogs are Brigands, Karnivores and Stalkers, this detachment's entire enhancement budget is unusable and you are taking it for the rule and the three stratagems alone. That may still be worth 1 Detachment Point, but decide it deliberately.

Enhancement points are dataslate-volatile and neither value carries a change marker in this pass.

At 1 Detachment Point this leaves 2 DP at Strike Force. Both recommendations below are legal whichever way the tag question resolves, because neither partner carries any tag.

Plus [Iconoclast Fiefdom](/40k/armies/chaos-knights/detachments/iconoclast-fiefdom) (1 DP, total 2). War Dogs hunt, 500 points of DAMNED infantry hold. The cheapest complete army shape in the faction.

Plus [Helhunt Lance](/40k/armies/chaos-knights/detachments/helhunt-lance) (2 DP, total 3). This is the pairing that gives a War Dog army a head. Helhunt Lance turns a Titanic Chaos Knight into a beneficiary of its own War Dog Auras when two or more War Dogs are in range; Hunting Warpack sharpens the War Dogs themselves.

Not recommended in either direction: Houndpack Lance, for the reason set out above.