As those of you who have been following my blog since its conception in December 2014 (or more accurately, around January 2015 when I first began to actually assemble and play Warhammer 40,000), my Knight Errant and Knight Paladin are my very first Warhammer 40,000 models, and Imperial Knights are my very first army. That's why my Knight Errant and Knight Paladin have a soft spot in my heart, and I continue to hang onto them and run them in my army despite...them not being good in the current meta.
I'll try to write the battle report sometime soon, but basically yesterday, in a game where I played my combined Imperial Knight and Imperial Guard (as you all know, my Imperial Guard are my Knights' Household Retinue who escort them in the battlefield), my Knight Errant and Knight Paladin basically sucked. No kidding. The D6 on the thermal cannon has always let me down, and for the life of anything my Knight Errant can't hit or kill anything with his thermal cannon. My Knight Paladin fared little better with shooting, and his Titanic Feet does more damage in close combat than any of his long-ranged weapons during shooting (and even then the Titanic Feet fell...flat. Twice). More on that in the battle report. But I had enough of the inconsistency - and since I had Titanic Feet and didn't really need the melee stuff, I thought I should cut off his Reaper Chainsword and replace it with an Avenger Gatling Cannon. I also succeeded in getting a 2nd Stormspear rocket pod, so now I have 2 Stormspear rocket pods. Several iterations of my list uses 2 Stormspear rocket pods because of how good and powerful they are...I wish I had better luck firing them, though.
Shoutout to my young friend, Adrian, who has always helped me out. He helped me cut off the Reaper Chainsword while I worked on assembling my Avenger Gatling cannon, and he also helped me prime and spray my models black while I was working on my Carnodon tank. In any case, I magnetized the arm and now my Knight Paladin has been upgraded into a Knight Crusader. Thanks to the magnetized thing, I can turn him back into a Knight Paladin with either a reaper chainsword or Thunderstrike Gauntlet (though that means my other Knight Gallant would have to be a Knight Crusader or Knight Paladin or Knight Warden, which defeats the whole point unless I'm desperate on saving points), or if I ally him as a Renegade Knight with my Thousand Sons, he can wield dual rapid-fire battle cannons (though I might as well use my other Knight and turn him into one with dual Avenger Gatling Cannons). In any case, he's now a Knight Crusader, and I hope the Avenger Gatling cannon helps him be more consistent or I'll cry. A lot. Well, not literally, but he and the Knight Errant haven't been doing so well in my games and I really want them to remain a solid mainstay in my army. Let's hope the Knight Crusader upgrade helps him fare better. Currently he's the one with the Stormspear rocket pod (I usually give him the Judgement Relic to re-roll hit rolls for the rocket pod and the AP -3 and 60" range), but now my Knight Gallant gets a Stormspear rocket pod too! Yay!
My Knight Crusader isn't the only one getting an upgrade. My Imperial Guard army has received reinforcements in the form of a Carnodon tank. As mentioned, ever since the Martian Priesthood has reinstated the Standard Template Construct for the Carnodon tank, Draconis IV have embraced full-scale production of the medium tank, which makes an ideal escort for the slower and heavier Leman Russ Executioner tanks. Draconis IV being Draconis IV, my Leman Russ tanks are equipped with plasma weaponry and lascannons, while my Carnodon tank is fitted with volkite weaponry. That said, I've magnetized the weapons (or tried to, in any case, with quite disastrous results - the twin lascannons in particlar look very shaky), so I can switch between volkite weapons and lascannons. I love the volkite culverin and volkite calivers, and making my Carnodon tanks the hi-tech yet ancient armor to boost the armored squadrons is just too tempting to resist. I still have a single Leman Russ Annihilator left over, so there's my anti-tank needs. However, for 70% of the points, I have 80% of the firepower (admittedly, I forgot to include the plasma cannons, oh well). Anyway, we'll see. For now I'll be happy to use the volkite weaponry because...volkite. I have no idea how it'll work, but I can't wait to try him out in a game!
It was annoying to magnetize because the main turret especially was not meant for magnetization. Oh well. After a few hours of frustration, I finally manage to get the magnets to stick (I washed the resin before assembling the tank and had no problems with assembling the actual tank) but for now I'm leaving the volkite on. I completely forgot about giving him a spare multilaser, but we'll see.
Again, shoutout to my friend Adrian for helping me paint and prime my models. He helped me spray and prime my Knight Valiant, Deathwatch Primaris Hellblasters and Carnodon weapons (I did the Carnodon tank itself). Thanks, Adrian! Thanks to him, now I can begin painting them (I'll paint them next Saturday or something, depending, because I have to study during the weekdays and on Sunday as always). I wonder how my Knight Valiant will look like - of course I'll be using the same color scheme as my other House Yato Knights. And the Carnodon tank is Draconian, so he'll be in Draconian colors too. The Knights of House Yato from Draconis III, marching to war with their Household Retinue, the Astra Militarum Regiments of the Draconian Armored Defenders! I also look forward to using my Knight Valiant in combat too. I haven't used him yet, having used my usual House Griffith Household Tradition for my House Yato Knights, but I want to experiment with my Knight Valiant and see what's appropriate for him, or maybe even just run them as Questor Mechanicus with the House Taranis Household Tradition alongside Skitarii. Well, no one said Questor Mechanicus or Mechanicus-aligned Knight Houses can only fight beside Skitarii - if I find that the House Taranis Household Tradition works better for me, then I'll just field them as House Taranis/Yato alongside my Draconian Imperial Guard, who are basically on their way to being Tech-guard anyway. Given the amount of plasma and tanks they receive from the Forge World Draconis IV, they might as well garrison the place in the place of Skitarii or are in-between normal Imperial Guard and Tech-Guard. We'll see. A pity Veterans have been relegated to Elites instead of Troops otherwise I could just field Skitarii as Imperial Guard - they have the same stats as Veterans and can take hi-tech weaponry (3 plasma guns for Veterans). That's one of the things I missed about 7th Edition Imperial Guard - Veterans as Troops. I do have to say, our Leman Russ tanks are a lot better and Guard is a lot stronger than in 7th Edition now!
With these done, my next project will probably to get the grav-flux bombard and storm cannon (or butcher cannon array) I need for my Deathwatch Leviathan Dreadnought and Thousand Sons Leviathan Dreadnought, and probably a Contemptor close combat fist and Volkite Culverin for my Thousand Sons Contemptor Dreadnought that I'll be getting soon (I'll have to stick him in the freezer to break off his arms and magnetize them). Once those are done, I'll wait on the Doom of Molech and start planning for my Adeptus Titanicus accordingly. While the idea of running nothing but Knights are tempting, I do want at least one Warlord Titan with the Sunfury Plasma Annihilator. I wonder if I'll be able to run 2 Reaver Titans as his escort without having to rely on the Legio Gryphonicus Legion Traits. I could just run the Myrmidon Maniple with 2 Warlord Titans and a Reaver, but I wouldn't have enough points for Knight banners, which I really want!
The next post should be on Knights versus Dreadnoughts if I ever have the time to write out a full battle report. I have several books to read for graduate school this week, so...we'll see. Till then!
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