Epic: Knights

What with his wisdom and his chivalrye,

He conquered al the regne of Femenye,

That whylom was y-cleped Scithia;

And weddede the quene Ipolita,

And broghte hir hoom with him in his contree

With muchel glorie and greet solempnitee

 - Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, the Knight's Tale

I very much enjoyed building my first 28mm Knight, so when I got into Adeptus Titanicus, I knew I wanted some Questoris Knights. You can field Knights as a support banner to go with your Titan maniple, like the Cerastus Knights in the starter set, or with Doom of Molech, as a whole Knight army of their own. Last year, you could still get the original Questoris Knight box as well as the one with the extra weapons, so I bought one of each. Then when I fucked up the bases on my Reavers and had to wait for new ones, I had time to start building the Knights!

**

I'll be magnetizing the Knights' main weapons and the rocket pods; the meltaguns and heavy stubbers are just far too fiddly so the Scion is getting a meltagun and everyone else is going to make do with the stubber. Other than that, though, weapon decisions with these Questoris Knights are easy, since there's just one of every gun in the box! So that's kind of disappointing. At least they look like they'll be easy to magnetize, with every kind of weapon attaching to an identical shoulder piece.

I started by gluing magnets to the inside of the carapace, so each Knight can hold a rocket pod, or something else, in case they ever introduce more carapace weapons. As for the rocket pods themselves, I ended up cutting off the bit that's meant to go into the hole in the carapace completely, and replacing it with a 1/16" * 1/32" magnet.

I think the end result is very cute!

The arm weapons were a lot more fiddly. Yes, it's possible to drill out the shoulder joint and insert a tiny magnet, and I did it. Twelve times. Mostly during online meetings!

The weapons were actually easier to drill!

Here are all the little weapons:

Like my 40k Armigers, these Knights are part of the Auxilia Daedra and bear their colours. That is, the metal bits are Gunmetal Grey with a Black Ink wash, and the armor plating is Black with Natural Steel edges. They are Knight Banner Azura, named after their Scion.

**

Last year, I tried to get a copy of Traitor Legios at my local gaming store, but they had just run out. Rather than leave empty-handed, I consoled myself with a box of Acastus Knight Porphyrions. I picked the Porphyrions because, well, they were available at my store, and also the other kind of Acastus is just ugly.

These guys are big, by the way. They're only slightly smaller than a Warhound.

I did the same thing as with the Questoris knights and left the banner on the Lord Scion; I also had a leftover dome from the Dystopian Wars Islands and Archipelagos set, so I stuck that on the other Acastus's base. With no weapon options, there was nothing to magnetize. I still painted them in stages, with the main body first, armor plates and such next, and the weapons last; I even did the weapons in stages because of the plating. Still, painting the big surfaces was so much easier that I finished these guys before the Questoris Knights.

In keeping with the Auxilia Daedra naming conventions, these are going to be the Knight Banner Molag Bal.

**

At this point, obviously Knights are a thing. So when Forge World announced they were doing adorable little Knight Armigers, of course I had to order some. The components are, well, tiny. I think those leg stabilizers have to be some of the smallest things I've ever glued.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of Armiger, Knight and Reaver weapons, just for the heck of it.

Although speaking of weapons, I do have a complaint. In 40k, Armigers have to take a carapace weapon; either a largely useless heavy stubber or a somewhat more expensive meltagun. In Titanicus, the heavy stubber is rightly ignored, so you just get the choice of upgrading your Armigers with meltaguns. But the box comes with two meltaguns and one heavy stubber for three Armigers. The meltaguns are ten points each! Frankly, there is no way I'm spending 20 points upgrading a banner that explodes if a Warlord looks at it, especially when an additional Armiger is only 25 points. It's completely mad to include this ratio of meltaguns to heavy stubbers. Yes, I can just leave the carapace weapon off entirely, but that's annoying because it can't be done in 40k.

But that's really my only complaint, because despite some of these parts being very tiny indeed, building these little guys was a breeze. I actually enjoyed myself, which, I have to admit, was not at all what I expected! They really are very tiny: here's a poor-quality size comparison with a Questoris Knight and a Reaver.

Here they are!

They're so cute I'm seriously debating getting more.

**

Here's the current lineup of Auxilia Daedra:

As with the Titanicus starter set miniatures, these were all excellent fun to build and paint. As soon as I get to grips with the Titanicus rules, I will be fielding all of them! I'm also kinda excited for the Dire Wolf, and just thrilled in general to see new Titanicus releases.