Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok, so I just finished Titanicus and I want a Titan. However, I have not the time, the money nor the space for a full size titan. As such, I'm thinking that I'm going to meet myself halfway and build myself a Knight Titan. (or 3)

I don't know exactly which model(s) I want to build, but I've been thinking alot about rules for them. I don't mind the BoLS rules for them, but they're kinda of... static. I like being able to customize my things a little bit, especially something that is the private steed of the noble house of a mechanicus dependant planet. Seems like they'd have some ability to specify what their machines carry.

These are extremely rough, and I plan to work and refine them as I go, but lets get started.

Knight Titan Rules:
Knight Titan Void Shields: Slightly less powerful that full fledged Titan rules, but capable of focusing their power to one area to react to enemy attacks. Void shields are armour 11 rather than 12, at the beginning of your opponent's shooting phase you may declare a facing to focus the shields towards. Void shields on that facing will be AV12.

Knight Kick: Knight titans have relatively weak legs for superheavy walkers. As such Knight titans cannot stomp, they can, however, kick. Pick one non-vehicle model in base contact with the Knight Titan and resolve an immediate attack against it at S8. If the model is hit, but not killed, immediatly move the model 2d6" in a random direction. (roll scatter, hit = titan chooses)

Knight Titan Weapons:
Close Combat Weapon:
Knight Titan Close Combat Weapon: Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon
Knight Titan Power Lance: Dreadought CCW, S10 I10 on turn charges
Knight Titan Power Fist: -1A -1I, Str D attacks
Knight Titan Power Lash: -2S, Auto-glace on hit vs. vehicles.

Ranged Weapons:
Megabolter: Heavy 3 Vulcan Megabolter
Tri-las: Heavy D3 Twin linked Lascannon
Megamelta: 30" Meltagun
Hellfire Cannon: Hellstorm Template, Flamer section = S6/AP3, rest = S5/AP4
Knight Titan Battle Cannon: Ordenence 2 Battlecannon
Warden Missile Rack: S8 AP3 Apocalyptic Barrage D6

Knight Pilots:
Knight Errant: WS3 BS3 I3 A1 Ld7
Knight: WS4 BS4 I4 A2 Ld8
Knight Crusader: WS5 BS4 I4 A3 Ld9
Knight Castellan: WS4 BS5 I4 A2 Ld9
Knight Baron: WS5 BS5 I5 A3 Ld10 - Allows other Knights to ignore Pilot Shaken on a 4+

Knight Models:
Knight Lancer
300 points + weapons
AV: F12 S11 R10
Structure points: 2
Voids: 1
Has Knight Errant pilot, can upgrade to Knight, or Knight Crusader
Must choose one Ranged Weapon (not battle cannon) and one Combat Weapon
Special Rule: Agile

Knight Paladin
400 points + weapons
AV: F13 S12 R11
Structure Points: 2
Voids: 1
Defaults with Knight, can upgrade to Knight Crusader, Knight Castellan, or Knight Baron(0-1)
Must choose 2 weapons (combat or ranged)

Knight Warden
450points + weapons
AV: F13 S13 R11
Structure Points: 2
Voids: 1
Defaults with Knight, can upgrade to Knight Castellan or Knight Baron(0-1)
Must choose two of: TL lascannon, TL Heavy Bolter, TL Autocannon, Inferno Cannon, TL missile launcher
Must choose one of: Turbolaser destructor, Vulcan Megabolter, Warden Missile Rack, Hellstorm Cannon

I don't know how much the scale was skewed in epic, but a knight was at most the height of a Land Raider turned on end. I'd almost think of them as walking Leman Russ' with dreadnought close combat weapons and shields, so I don't really think they'd be considered superheavies with structure points. I think the most comparable thing to a knight that currently exists is the Defiler.

Also even with the powerful weapons you have I think your knights are a bit overpriced.

I think the void shields could be simplified to a save of some sort. Like, on a 4+ save your opponent only rolls 1d3 on his penetration roll.

I find, when brainstorming it's better to have them too expensive to start with then slowly slide them down from "outrageous" to "reasonable".

Knights are supposed to be something like 7-8m tall, which is deffiently big enough to be superheavy, plus what's the fun of designing a customer apocalypse unit if it's just a walking Leman Russ. :p

Oh I agree on the pricing theory in proposals. I was just pointing it out.

Even at 7-8m tall that's no more than 4.5 to 5.5in on the table top and is generally less than the length of a landraider and most knights are not as bulky.

Over at Bell of Lost Souls, they made a mini-dex for Apocalypse that has a pretty good rule set for knights and some other vehicles. Their rules are pretty similar to yours but with more reasonable point values.

Lord of Battle V2: http://belloflostsouls.blogspot.com/2008/07/bols-mini-dex-downloads-archive.html

I still disagree with their rules for the same reason I disagree with yours, size. I based my thoughts on the knights relative size to the landraider, which means either the Knights are not superheavies, or landraiders should be.

Well, a Warhound titan stands 10.5" high according to Forgeworld and it's supposed to be 14m tall.

That would put the Knights at around 5"-8" tall. which is a nice size for it, IMHO.

GW was always a bit fuzzy on the scale of titans relative to other vehicles. Well 5" brings a knight upto crotch level of the old armorcast Reaver titan. The old warhound and new warhound are not that different in height.

Like I said before 5.5" is what I'm thinking. First that keeps it relative to a landraider, second it is only a single man vehicle while a warhound is 3-5 crew (depending if you count servitors). I think you could go as large as 6.5 to 7 inches, I think it'll be pushing the limits a bit, but that's what 40k is about and its ultimately your choice.

When I did my knights, I built the army to stand in as an armored company and mounted them on CD's. So I think I'm biased to them being larger. I built mine using Defilers lower torsos and legs turned upright and sentinel cockpits as the heads on some. So 5-6" is also the limit based on those resources. I've seen some people build them almost to the size of warhounds and I know those are definitely too big.

I'm pickturing Lancers being about 5" tall, Barons about 6.5", and Wardens about 7.5".

Warhound (not counting servitors) would actually be crew of 4. Princeps, 2 moderati, and an Enginseer in the carapace.

You haven't already, check this out.

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Resin_Vehicles_&_Titans

I always thought this stuff was usually scaled pretty well.

Feor wrote:I'm pickturing Lancers being about 5" tall, Barons about 6.5", and Wardens about 7.5".

Warhound (not counting servitors) would actually be crew of 4. Princeps, 2 moderati, and an Enginseer in the carapace.

Between the epic models I have they're all pretty much the same height the difference seems to be more in the bulkiness.

Well still, my point was that I always sided on the smaller size because a knight would need to be manageable for the single pilot.

Yeah Zip, those are all pretty cool. Brings back a lot of memories. I have the Reaver Titan, sold off my warhound a couple years back (I regret that). I remember when Armorcast was talking about doing the knights and the Warlord and Imperator titans, it was a shame they never did. I doubt Forge World ever will.

i agree, they are a little on the small size for super heavy's.
and s said, even wih titan weapons they are over priced.

in terms of making them, a defiler kit or 2 should do the job well.

aka_mythos wrote:

Feor wrote:I'm pickturing Lancers being about 5" tall, Barons about 6.5", and Wardens about 7.5".

Warhound (not counting servitors) would actually be crew of 4. Princeps, 2 moderati, and an Enginseer in the carapace.

Between the epic models I have they're all pretty much the same height the difference seems to be more in the bulkiness.

Well still, my point was that I always sided on the smaller size because a knight would need to be manageable for the single pilot.

Yeah Zip, those are all pretty cool. Brings back a lot of memories. I have the Reaver Titan, sold off my warhound a couple years back (I regret that). I remember when Armorcast was talking about doing the knights and the Warlord and Imperator titans, it was a shame they never did. I doubt Forge World ever will.

I mostly wanted to point out the height of the Paladin model. It seems to be about 4 1/2 to 5 marines tall(double the height of a dreadnought?). I agree with you that Forge World will probably never make these models.

When I first heard about Knight class walkers I got some ideas about scratch building one for myself. Based on the armaments it gave me the impression of a more mobile as well as technologically advanced russ ( think stc meets battletech?). Going off of the pictures online as well as in the BoLS fandex I got a feel that it should be around 5-6.5" tall. I found the easiest scale point to be the battlecannon in relation to a leman russ. I think what really intrigued me was that this was a large walker but not so large or powerful that it only had a place in apocalypse-level games. For that reason I find your ruleset as well as the rules from the fandex to be on the beefier end of the stat lines but thats to be expected as it seems both have a more apocalypse oriented focus. Even so its nice to see work related to knights when they are oh so absent from the gw fluff nowadays.

The most fluff that I have seen for the knight titans is the Mechanicum book of the HH series. The knight titan there had the honor of being personally blessed by the Emperor himself when he landed the first time at Mars.

Well knights were just a little smaller height than warhounds, but not as bulky. In titan legions they followed the rules for super heavy vehicles. The shileds of the knights worked differently than most, they were only supposed to slow down shots, not stop them. They only covered a 90 degree arc (positionable in original space marine fixed forward in titan legions), all they did though was remove save modifiers, so they should negate ap and any special rules like lance and melta. They still had to take their basic armor saves whenever they got hit. Their armor was pretty good though, not on par with a baneblade, but at least as good as a land-raider.

They were definatly superheavies! They carried titan weapons. They had less armor than most superheavies, but their shields usually made up for that, their big advantage was speed, plus the shock lance was really nasty in close combat when they charged.



So that is a landraider next to this one.

...threadnomancy... tasty.

A warhound is 10.5 inches. By your picture a Knight should be 3/4 the height of a warhound. Roughly 7.5" tall.

This puts the size of a Knight as being either a large conventional vehicle or a light superheavy. A 40k land raider is about 6.5" long and a Defiler 4" tall with the footprint roughly a 9" circle... both are very similar in volume and size to a knight and are conventional vehicles. Even the smallest super heavies the Malcador and Macharius are 4" longer than a Land Raider, with varying bulk. While someone could make a Knight the new "smallest" super heavy, I don't think it would make too much sense. Knights should fit in as the Imperial equivalent to defilers. At 7.5" tall they're roughly same volume as the defile model.

As a superheavy what do their rules really accomplish that couldn't be accomplished by simply making a rule that effectively an exception to the convention of non-superheavies.

Here is the next thing, just because they "carry titan weapons" doesn't mean they have to be super heavy vehicles. What has to be considered is that between a Warlord, Reaver, and Warhound... many of the same "titan weapons" are options, but they are scaled down to each titan. A Reaver has a Laser Blaster (3 barrels) and the Warhound the Turbo Laser (2 barrels)... and the next single barreled version of this "titan weapon" is the laser destroyer present on the "Destroyer Tank Hunter" model by forger world. So even "titan weapons" appear on conventional units.

The only thing that Knights should probably have that they wouldn't have as a conventional unit is the right level of survivability, which should be more than the average tank. This however could simply be covered by the rules for its void fields, either giving it an inv-save of some sort or the equivalent of wounds.

aka_mythos wrote:...threadnomancy... tasty.

A warhound is 10.5 inches. By your picture a Knight should be 3/4 the height of a warhound. Roughly 7.5" tall.

This puts the size of a Knight as being either a large conventional vehicle or a light superheavy. A 40k land raider is about 6.5" long and a Defiler 4" tall with the footprint roughly a 9" circle... both are very similar in volume and size to a knight and are conventional vehicles. Even the smallest super heavies the Malcador and Macharius are 4" longer than a Land Raider, with varying bulk. While someone could make a Knight the new "smallest" super heavy, I don't think it would make too much sense. Knights should fit in as the Imperial equivalent to defilers. At 7.5" tall they're roughly same volume as the defile model.

As a superheavy what do their rules really accomplish that couldn't be accomplished by simply making a rule that effectively an exception to the convention of non-superheavies.

Here is the next thing, just because they "carry titan weapons" doesn't mean they have to be super heavy vehicles. What has to be considered is that between a Warlord, Reaver, and Warhound... many of the same "titan weapons" are options, but they are scaled down to each titan. A Reaver has a Laser Blaster (3 barrels) and the Warhound the Turbo Laser (2 barrels)... and the next single barreled version of this "titan weapon" is the laser destroyer present on the "Destroyer Tank Hunter" model by forger world. So even "titan weapons" appear on conventional units.

The only thing that Knights should probably have that they wouldn't have as a conventional unit is the right level of survivability, which should be more than the average tank. This however could simply be covered by the rules for its void fields, either giving it an inv-save of some sort or the equivalent of wounds.

A knight titan was about twice as tall as a landraider!

It gets foggy though when you consider knights like the castillion knight titans that had volcano cannons and defense lasers. They were at least as heavy as a baneblade or shadowsword. Again knights were considered superheavy in Epic, seams they should be considered the same in 40k. I would think that a knight titan would be much better than defiler. It's faster, better armor, shields, better projectile weapons and better close combat weapons.

I suppose I could get out the old titan legions book and really compare the stats. I do know that once the knights came out I rarely took superheavy tanks anymore because the knights were better in most cases.

Andrew1975 wrote:
A knight titan was about twice as tall as a landraider!

I said:

aka_mythos wrote:A 40k land raider is about 6.5" long

I'm not sure how what you're saying is meant to contradict that, but you're saying it as if it does.

I said a knight should be about 7.5" tall based on the epic models. Which if you scaled a knight to that size leaves it only as bulky and similar in proportions to an upturned Defiler.

The only perceivable hole in my argument is maybe Defilers should be superheavies, given their size.

Andrew1975 wrote:
It gets foggy though when you consider knights like the castillion knight titans that had volcano cannons and defense lasers. They were at least as heavy as a baneblade or shadowsword. Again knights were considered superheavy in Epic, seams they should be considered the same in 40k. I would think that a knight titan would be much better than defiler. It's faster, better armor, shields, better projectile weapons and better close combat weapons.

I suppose I could get out the old titan legions book and really compare the stats. I do know that once the knights came out I rarely took superheavy tanks anymore because the knights were better in most cases.

The issue with incorporating Knights into 40k has always been the inconsistencies with size and class. They are superheavies in epic, but their physical size don't warrant it.

When I use the analogy of the Knight to the defiler, I don't mean it in absolute terms... I did say they're effectively the "same." A defiler is a walker with fleet... considering its smaller stride that isn't much different from the 12" movement of a warhound. I also said that at issue with my analogy was the survivability which is really a matter of the value assigned to the armor and the special rules you give Knights; plenty of eldar units have special rules that effectively give invulnerable saves, no reason a knight couldn't also.

On your last point... better projectile weapons and better close combat weapons... I have issues with that. "Better" than what?-I mean its suppose to be better than a leman russ... but at the same time, they aren't quite in the same class as a full warhound's weapons either. I use the example of the laser destroyer because it is just that, better than a standard russ' battle cannon (in some ways), but a class down from a warhound's... and suitable for a non-superheavy. The problem is a matter of the scale of 40k weapons, and I mean that in the numerical values assigned to their stat. Without creating very similar weapons to existing conventional unit weapons and merely assigning special rules... you run out of strength, range, ap values and combination you can assign. Whatever new combinations you come up with would tend to look alot like the myriad of IG tank weapons. I believe that knight weapons would tend to look like the IG artillery weapons, but used in a similar way to how leman russ tanks use their cannons.

Next when it comes to close combat... Knights are better off not being super heavies. As super heavies their rules only allow them to use their close combat weapons against other superheavies. That said defilers are S10... and the rules don't allow any higher strength close combat weapons. So the only rules to allow them to be any better in close combat is to grant special rules, increase WS or number of attacks or initiative.

My bro made a set of chaos knights from some plasticard and the soul grinder kit for decortication and the weapons. they looked pretty good but i lost or broke them when he passed them down to me as i had no use for them (i collect crons) but they were about 5 and a half inches tall. (only rough measurement from what i can remember.)

Hope this helps.

I have my knight titan at 7.5

Let's not forget that many 40k vehicles are scaled down. Art in C:SM shows how huge the land raider is compared to termies. LRs are toned/scaled down to fit in the game, though they probably should have been apocalypse.

Surtur wrote:Let's not forget that many 40k vehicles are scaled down. Art in C:SM shows how huge the land raider is compared to termies. LRs are toned/scaled down to fit in the game, though they probably should have been apocalypse.

I think alot of issues come from the scale inconsistencies, but thats why a vehicle to vehicle comparison of Knight to Landraider or Knight to Defiler works, but comparing a Knight to individual marines kinda fails. You also have to realize that just because ther art shows it doesn't mean its "correct." The artist making a picture gets to interpret the concept more than the sculptor.

For example... An emperor titan's only described as about 5 meters taller than the statue of liberty... big but not walking over mountain tops big... like this picture. At the same time there is alot of inconsistency in literary descriptions... with it raning as big as 40m tall.... but simultaneously Warlord titans are suppose to be "60m"... point is descriptions and pictures make less sense, especially when you have models to go on and that "good enough."

in terms of size, a lot of the knight titan build i have seen have been built using the Defiler kit but standing it upright on the Defiler legs.

That was one of the first things I did when the Defiler kit first came out. My conversion just straightend the legs and used the section of the body the legs attach to as the torso. You end up with a knight that is about 6.25"-6.5" unless you more extensively modify. Thats a little short. I've also seen some conversions that just go crazy and are ~9", too tall and look a bit too malproportioned.

Dreadknights exist now.

I suppose you could bulk out a Dreadknight and get muchthe same effect.

DarknessEternal wrote:Dreadknights exist now.

A dreadnight is not the same as a Knight titan.

I think hsi point was that you coudl use the dreadknight model as a basis for a conversion rather than making a Defiler stand upright.

Ah... I think the dreadknight is about ~2" too short, though it'd be worth the try. A Knight titan is about what you'd have if you scaled the whole model upto the point where the pilot could fit entirely in the torso.