40K: Houston, We Have A Knight Problem
In the Grim-Knight-Ness of the Knight-Future: There are only Knights. We need to chat.
So we did a quick survey to see how many knights were in the game. Here are the results:
- Imperial Knights – 20 Knights (11 in the Knight Codex and 9 more from Forge World).
- Chaos Knights – 5 Knights (Only counting the 5 listed in Chaos Knight Codex, 7 if you could the Lord of Skulls and the Kytan).
- Orks – 4 Knights (1 Stompa with the belly cannon from Forge World, 1 without, and the Gorka/Morka-nauts which are debatable).
- T’au – 3 Knights ( Supremacy Armor – which is more akin to a Titan, then the Stormsurge, and arguably the Riptide).
- Necrons – 1 Knight (Seraptek Heavy Construct from Forge World).
Are there other units that we considered and/or missed as a ‘Knight’ sized threat? Sure. But the point is that there are a LOT of Knights in the game and it’s slanted towards a particular faction (guess which one).
So aside from that, we think this really tells us a few things we want to chat about.
First, Games Workshop Loves Knights. It’s clear that someone in the company has a love for these big kits and they (as a company) are 100% on board with more Knights in the game. You could make the case that at the end of the day, it’s a business and Knights are selling so why not make more – we get it. At the same time, this is kind of a chicken/egg problem with the models/rules. But that’s a whole other topic – the point is that GW has found a niche with Knights and they are looking to fill it.
Secondly, Stop With The Imperial Knights. Again, we get it. The Imperium is by far the largest faction in the game and has the most players. So, make models for the largest amount of your players to get sales – from a business standpoint, it makes total sense…for the short term. In the long run, it’s marginalizing the non-Imperial Players and it’s putting them at a disadvantage. If your endgame is to make the game about the Imperium vs everyone else, then this is where the trail leads.
You can already add all the Knights from the other factions and you’ve still got less than the Imperium. That’s the problem.
Third, If this is the future of the game, Everyone NOT Imperium Needs More Knights. Seriously, we can’t stress this enough. Spread the Knight love around and create more kits/variants for the non-Imperial factions. The Aeldari are one of the oldest races in the game and they only have 2 Knights? C’mon GW. And where is the Drukhari’s Knight? All that raiding and they haven’t stolen some Knight-tech? And what about the Tyranids? They are super-adaptive and they have yet to get a Plastic Lord of War kit? What’s up with that!?
Knights aren’t going anywhere. When we look back at 8th edition one day, it will be known as the Knight Edition of 40k. Love ’em or hate ’em, Warhammer 40,000 has a Knight Problem and right now, the solution is looking like “MOAR KNIGHTS!”
What side of the fence are you on? Are there too many Knights already and you want less, or do you want to level the battlefield with more Knights?
