Infernal Lance: The 11th-Edition Chaos Knights Malefic Surge Detachment

In your Command phase, one or more Chaos Knights units from your army can make a Malefic Surge. Each one that does must first take a Leadership test, and a failed test costs that unit D3 mortal wounds. Until the start of your next Command phase that unit is Empowered. An Empowered unit can use one of the three Malefic Surge abilities, and once it does, it stops being Empowered.

Unholy Hunger. When a model in this unit makes a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move, until the end of the phase add 3 inches to its Move.

Diabolic Power. When this unit is selected to shoot or fight, select either [LETHAL HITS] or [SUSTAINED HITS 1]; until the end of the phase, weapons equipped by models in the unit have it.

Unnatural Fortitude. This is the clause the pack rewrote in version 1.2, and the amended text is what follows: when this unit is selected as the target of an attack, select one of the following to apply until the end of the phase, either a 5+ invulnerable save or the Feel No Pain 6+ ability.

Why that rewrite matters. It converted a fixed defensive benefit into a choice made when you are attacked, which is a materially better rule against a mixed threat: the invulnerable save is what you want against high Armour Penetration, and Feel No Pain is what you want against volume and against mortal wounds. If you learned this detachment before 26 August 2026, this is the clause to relearn.

The shape of the whole thing. Every Command phase you decide, per unit, whether to risk D3 mortal wounds for a benefit you get to pick later in the turn. That is a genuinely different decision from the rest of the faction, and it is what 3 Detachment Points buys.

Hellforged Construction. The pack rewrites its Effect section to: until the attacking unit has finished making its attacks, each time an attack targets your unit, worsen the Armour Penetration characteristic of that attack by 1.

That amended effect is first-party. It is also a useful cross-check on our reading, because it is the same effect the pack prints in full for the Helhunt Lance stratagem Beasthide Manifestation on page 6. Two detachments in the same pack ending up with the same defensive tool is a coincidence worth noting rather than a transcription error.

The rest of this detachment's stratagems are not printed in the pack and are not amended, so we do not restate them. Read them in the Warhammer 40,000 app.

The pack does not print the rules text of this detachment's enhancements. From the official Munitorum Field Manual v1.3, reprinted only as a planning aid and dataslate-volatile:

• Blasphemous Engine, 35 points.
• Fleshmetal Fusion, 35 points.
• Bestial Aspect, 30 points.
• Knight Diabolus, 25 points.

Four enhancements at 125 points total is the most expensive enhancement list in the faction, which is worth knowing when you are budgeting points rather than Detachment Points: a 3 DP detachment with a 35 point cheapest option is a large commitment in both currencies. None of the four carries a change marker in this pass.

Infernal Lance costs 3 Detachment Points, which is the entire Strike Force budget. There is nothing left to combine it with, and at Incursion you cannot take it at all.

That is a real cost. The Chaos Knights have three 1 DP detachments, and taking all three gives you three detachment rules, three enhancement lists and nine stratagems for the same price as this one. Infernal Lance is worth it when you want a per-turn decision rather than a permanent effect, and when your Knights' Leadership is good enough that the D3 mortal wound penalty is a rare tax rather than a regular one.

If you want to see the alternative written out, our three cheap detachments combo covers the 1 plus 1 plus 1 shape, which is also the shape whose legality is unaffected by this faction's unresolved tag question.