40K Deep Thought: Beware the Knights of March!
I’ve been looking over the Knight, reading between the lines of the White Dwarf and am left with a set of questions I would like to share…
OK, lets get something out of the way right now – I LOVE the Imperial Knight kit. I’m not even talking about he rules, I’m just talking the model here. I would like to go out on a limb and say this is the best piece of work the Studio has put out since the Wraithknight, and exceeds it in some ways.
It definitely looks like a trailblazer that could lead to plastic titans if GW wanted to.
The thing is all giant-robo, dripping with detail, yet walks that fine balance of belonging in the 40K universe without being overtly grimdark. To be honest when I look at it from certain angles it most reminds me of a Warmachine Menoth Warjack – 40K Dreadnought mashup – in all the right ways. It appeals to both grizzled old-timers who remember its origin in EPIC and the newcomers who love the cool new toy.
But now let’s go over some of the odd little things I’ve noticed.
1) The White Dwarf kind of goes on for a bit about the Knights come from these Independent feudal worlds based on strict class and societal structures that pre-date the Imperium – and aren’t really similar to it in any way other than oaths and treaties of alliance.
2) The Mechanicus allies with some of these worlds out of greed to gain access to the Knight world’s superior technology!
3) There is some type of codex coming with 3 armylists:
-Knights aligned with the Imperium
-Knights aligned with the Adeptus Mechanicus
-Freeblade Knights (effectively masterless)
4) “Imperial Knights” is now listed on the GW main page as a separate army like Tau, or Eldar.
5) There are still at least 3-4 weeks of product and White Dwarfs to fill before IG arrive in April.
6) Each White Dwarf week has been accompanied by 1-2 new plastic kits apiece.
Anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?
If we are looking at GW introducing an entirely new army to the 40K; 3-4 weeks would probably be enough time to fill out the first edition core of a range to get them started. Any new army tends to be short on units, as you just can’t pull dozens of new kits out all at once. But having a codex that innately allied the new faction with existing factions in the game (see #2) above helps relieve that pressure by a lot by letting them share a lot of existing units (as we saw with Grey Knights having access to many Space Marine vehicle kits)
And that’s my question to you all?
What do you think is lurking in March?
How many kits would it take to launch a viable Imperial Knights faction? (Grey Knights were launched with 3 plastic boxes and a handful of single models)
What would you expect those kits to contain? (Mechanicus type things, Techno-feudal type things, something else entirely)
~I have a feeling March is going to be very, very interesting…and expensive.
