Dominus Foebreakers: The 11th-Edition Knight Castellan and Valiant Detachment

Friendly IMPERIAL KNIGHTS DOMINUS units' attacks that target a unit in a terrain area have +1 to hit rolls.

That is the whole rule. Three things follow from it.

It is a hit bonus, not a cover bypass. Sitting in terrain still gives your target whatever benefit terrain gives it. What you get is a better chance to connect in the first place, which is a different currency. If you want to ignore cover outright, that lives in Throne-bonded Outriders for Armigers and in the Freeblade Company Hunter's Eye enhancement for anybody.

It rewards the enemy for hiding, which is what enemies do. Most armies spend the first two battle rounds in terrain, which is exactly when a Dominus-class Knight has clear lines and full wounds. The rule is front-loaded by the way people actually play.

It reaches two datasheets. The Knight Castellan is the long-ranged one; the Knight Valiant is the short-ranged one. Everything below applies to those two and nothing else in your army.

Ground-shaking Strides (1CP, your Movement phase, when a friendly IMPERIAL KNIGHTS DOMINUS unit is selected to move). That unit has +2 inches Move. Small, but Dominus-class Knights are slow and the detachment rule only pays out once you can see something in terrain.

Foebreaker Firestorm (1CP, your Shooting phase, when a friendly engaged IMPERIAL KNIGHTS DOMINUS unit is selected to shoot). Its [BLAST] ranged attacks lose [BLAST] and gain +1 Attack.

This is the one worth reading twice. The WHEN clause requires your unit to be engaged, and [BLAST] weapons normally cannot be fired at a unit within Engagement Range at all. Stripping the keyword is what unlocks the shot; the +1 Attack compensates for losing the [BLAST] bonus against large units. This is a rescue button for a Knight that has been tied up, not a general damage buff you fire every turn.

Fire Shocked (1CP, your Shooting phase, when a friendly IMPERIAL KNIGHTS DOMINUS unit has shot). Select one enemy unit hit by those attacks; it makes a battle-shock roll with minus 1. Dominus guns hit a lot of models, so the condition is easy to meet, and a battle-shocked unit has Objective Control 0. Treat this as a scoring stratagem that happens to be worded as a morale one.

Archeotech Autoloaders (25 points). IMPERIAL KNIGHTS DOMINUS model only. This unit can re-roll rolls to determine the A of a weapon. Dominus-class Knights carry several random-attack profiles, so this turns the disaster rolls into average ones. It is the steadier pick and usually the first.

Blessed Plate (30 points). IMPERIAL KNIGHTS DOMINUS model only. +1 Toughness. On a model already among the toughest in the game, one point moves several common weapon Strengths across a wound-roll threshold. Whether that is worth 5 points more than the autoloaders depends entirely on the guns you expect to face.

Enhancement points are dataslate-volatile; both values come from the Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 and neither carries a change marker in this pass.

At 1 Detachment Point this leaves 2 DP spare at Strike Force, and it needs them, because two enormous guns are not an army.

Plus [Questor Forgepact](/40k/armies/imperial-knights/detachments/questor-forgepact) (1 DP, total 2). The Mechanicus Allies clause is where a Knights army gets bodies. This pairing leaves a point unspent, which is unusual and worth doing only if you genuinely want the flexibility.

Plus [Gate Warden Lance](/40k/armies/imperial-knights/detachments/gate-warden-lance) (2 DP, total 3). Both detachments pay big guns for standing still. A Castellan on a foundation marker is collecting from both rules at once.

Plus [Spearhead-at-Arms](/40k/armies/imperial-knights/detachments/spearhead-at-arms) (2 DP, total 3). This one fixes the board-presence problem directly by making Armigers Battleline. Read that page's disclaimer first: its rules text is mirror-sourced.

Nothing here carries a Unique Tag, so every one of those pairings is unambiguously legal.