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Hey guys, part of me is wanting to take the plunge and get an imperial knight, but what is the breakdown of each? Can someone break down the pros and cons of each?

All Imperial Knights are the same. Not that they "play the same" but they are the same. They all share the same chassis and the only difference between them are the weapon loadouts.

The Paladin, Errant and Warden are only differentiated by their gun; don't be fooled by the pic on the website or the kit itself; they can all take either the chainsword or the fist for their left arms and take any carapace weapon.

The Crusader is unique in that it has two guns. However one must be the Avenger Gatling Cannon, while the other is interchangeable between the Battle Cannon or Thermal Cannon. Note that it can never take two weapons of the same kind (unlike the Renegade version). It's a little stronger than the other Knights because Knights all come with Stomping Feet, which are pretty decent for close combat as-is (making the chainsword and gauntlet kinda overkill at times). However, the Crusader pays more because the guns are more expensive than the close combat weapons.

The last one is the Gallant, which has two CCWs rather than a gun on either arm (it still comes with the heavy stubber and you can buy a carapace weapon if you wish). Again, Knights are better off in a shooting setup, but it is cheaper than the other knights so if you're strapped for points (especially in a Knight-only army, where "strapped for points" can be in the hundreds sometimes) it's a good filler knight. (This is assuming you're not allying something like, say, IG infantry blobs or Admech Skitarii for some smaller dudes and just want to go pure knights).

For weapons:

Gun Arms:

Avenger Gatling Cannon: Pretty good for shredding heavy infantry, but unlike what the name implies, it is NOT a horde killer (at least not when you factor in the rest of the knight's cost). It's the middle child in terms of point costs, and makes for a good weapon if you just want something that can do a decent job at everything reliably as, while it has the lowest strength, it's 12 shots and otherwise decent stats means it can pretty much take on anything short of another superheavy tank or huge monster (and even then the sheer volume of shots should take care of them). Note that this thing comes with a manditory Heavy Flamer, which you will likely never use. It will chew up points (its not included with the cannon), so just be aware of that.

Rapid Fire Battle Cannon: The most expensive of the three (but only by like 5%) but also the one with the most potential for damage. With 2D6 shots, S8, decent AP and damage it will devastate heavy infantry, multi-wound models and heavy vehicles/monsters. The difference between this and the Avenger Gatling Cannon is that the latter is more reliable (having set damage and shots) while the former has more potential for damage, but otherwise I would consider both good as an "all rounder" if you have no idea what you really want (again, despite the shots, the Avenger won't be mowing down hordes given the cost of a single knight). If you know you'll be facing elite armies (especially multi-wound ones like tankspam, monsters or terminators) then this one will perform slightly better than the Avenger, but the Avenger, with it's statistically 5 extra shots at the expense of -2 strength and potentially +1 damage just feels like a better pick. If you're taking a Crusader though, this might be better than the Thermal Cannon just because you can make your knight a bit more focused. Note that with this one, you're forced to buy another heavy stubber (which, if I'm reading the index correctly, is not included in the price) so, again, expensive. Given that both this and the Avenger forces you to take a second weapon, this one actually works out to be cheaper overall (A heavy flamer being more than four times more expensive than a stubber), so if you need to shave 8 points anywhere, replace a Warden with a Paladin could be a way to go.

Thermal Cannon: The big melta gun. Functionally treat it as a 2 shot super-lascannon (you will find very rare situations to fire it at anything with more than 5 models, meaning the "upgrade to Heavy D6" rule will rarely come in play). It's the cheapest of the three and obviously you want it when you're going up against other superheavies or tough to crack nuts. There's really not much to say about it. It's better on an Errant (the Thermal Cannon's Gun and Sword combo Knight) than on a Crusader since an Errant can focus on hunting down tanks (and thus more likely to remain within the 18" melta range) even though the crusader can split it's fire.


Smacking Arms:

Reaper Chainsword: The default for many of the Knight variants (only the Crusader doesn't have it as default). it's stats are pretty good, being able to turn anything short of another superheavy into chunky salsa. Note that the Knight only has 4 attacks, so if you're gonna use this, try aiming for single model units with a lot of wounds.

Thunderstrike Gauntlet: Slightly more expensive than the Chainsword (but due to the cost of the knights, this is, in the words of Son Goku, "leaking a little pee" in terms of difference) but straight up doubles your strength and lets you throw a destroyed VEHICLE or MONSTER into another unit in a pseudo shooting attack. The downside? -1 to Hit with it, which can sometimes make or break the game. This is bigger than it sounds because Knights have degrading profiles and one of the things that degrades is your WS, meaning if you're damaged you're hitting on 5's or 6's, and the best you can hope for is 4+. Knights also don't have a lot of buffers right now, unlike other armies which can mitigate it with psychic powers or character auras, so this is an even bigger issue. For those reasons I prefer the Chainsword over the fist, as the throwing gimmick rarely comes up. If you're taking a Gallant, you're forced to take one by default but you don't have to use it. (also it has a better AP, but when you start at -3, -4 isn't that much of an improvement. Again hitting more is more important than ignoring armor).

Built-In Weapons:

Titanic Feet: These are what you default to if you don't have any other weapons (only an issue for the Crusader). Honestly, not that bad all things considered. It's weaker than the Chainsword, but gives you more attacks in return. With the Knight's innately high strength and this thing's AP-2, you can take out quite a number of things ranging from light tanks to MEQs with just your giant feet. Again, you're forced to take this on every Knight, but it's not that bad and is actually better than the chainsword in horde situations.

Heavy Stubber/Melta Gun: Good ol standbys. You know the drill. One is for infantry the other is for tanks. I would take the Stubber because 1.) it's cheaper than the Melta Gun and 2.) you will almost never be within range to even use the Melta Gun, let alone get the Melta rule off. If you are that close, you have your giant feet. The Stubber might do diddly to armored units but diddly is better than nothing most of the time. And again, the stubber is cheaper; your knights are already expensive; you don't want to nickle and dime yourself on top of that (and remember you're forced to take one or the other. Even with PLs, the stubber is better by virtue of actually getting some use).

Carapace Weapons:

NOTE: Unlike the other weapons, Carapace Weapons are NOT MANDATORY. This means that if you need to adjust points, often this is the place to do it.

Stormspear Rocket Pod: A 3 shot Krak Missile launcher in essence (I think it has a different damage?). You can't really go wrong with it. However it is the most expensive, and by a good chunk too, so all that goodness does come at a price.

Ironstorm Rocket Pod: A slightly stronger Frag missile launcher for almost 1/3rd of the price of the Stormspear that also doesn't require line of sight. However given how tall Knights are (and this thing sits on the very top of the knight) it will be rare when you don't have line of sight to something. Still, nice rule to have and it's a cheap carapace weapon. At S5 and AP-1 it can also deal reliable damage. Overall, for the price, not a bad choice. Note that it's number of shots is slightly less reliable; on average it will have 1 more shot than the Stormspear. But again, 1/3rd of the cost. I would rather have three knights armed with this than one knight with a stormspear if points were limiting.

Twin Icarus Autocannons: 4 Shot autocannon that is better at shooting FLY targets than non FLY targets. This one is slightly situational but you will want at least 1/3rd of your knights to have one if you're going with carapace weapons (in most of the cases, only 1 or 2). Note that it says "FLY", not Flyers, and a lot of non-flyers have FLY now, so it's not as useless as last edition, and can actually surprise your opponent (if I remember, most things with jump packs have FLY now). If you target a FLY model your Knight can suddenly become BS 2+ with this thing, so again it has it's uses and if you don't know what your opponent has, it's a good idea to bring at least one. Points wise, it's in the middle of the two rocket pods.

Again, all Knights have the exact same profile, so the pros and cons of each knight is entirely dependent on what you equip it with. Paladins, Errants and Wardens all have a single arm gun and thus tend to be shoehorned into specific roles, while the Crusader is often your most powerful knight but also the one to be targeted the most. Gallants will basically outpace your entire army at times (even though everyone has the same movement) simply because it needs to be closer than the other knights to be even remotely effective. Going full Crusaders may sound like a good idea but it isn't; it's expensive enough that they could often take enough points away from another knight, and having another body on the field is usually better than having more efficient guns. Knights also have long enough strides that the Reaper Chainsword is still fairly useful, especially since you can back out of combat and still shoot due to their own rules.

Finally, With the AdMech Codex just over the horizon, the Imperial Knights might get updated in them (something about them getting Questoris in the codex) which means that all of this is liable to change drastically when the codex drops. Warlord Traits, Relics, Household Rules, possibly being affected by Dogmas and Canticles, etc. may all come with the codex.


Final Note: Renegade Knights (available in the Chaos Index currently, and note that they are actually different from "Chaos Knights", which are a Forge World unit) are identical to Imperial Knights, down to the point costs. Obviously, they have a different set of keywords, but as nothing else shares keywords other than "Chaos" with them, it doesn't really matter since they can't receive buffs anyways. There is one major difference though; Renegade Knights can double up on the same gun for each arm, meaning that twin Avenger Cannons, Twin Thermal Cannons and (if you wanna blow a lot of points) Twin Rapid Fire Battle Cannons are all builds that are possible with Renegade Knights that are not possible with Imperial Knights. This can drastically change up the dynamic of the weapons, as two Avenger Gatling Cannons can now handle hordes fairly easily and cheaply (basically being able to almost delete any unit short of a Conscript Squad in a single turn) and Two Thermal Cannons can obliterate other superheavies pretty easily. Parts wise though, no set comes with double of each weapon, so you'll have to hunt them down from bitz sites or convert them on your own.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: Forgot to mention something. Always buy the Knight Warden, Knight Crusader or Knight Gallant Kit. Despite the name, those three kits are identical in every way and contain all of the weapon options. The Paladin and Errant Kits came out first, so they only have the thermal cannon and Rapid Fire Battle Cannons. They don't even come with carapace weapons. You can save a little bit of money if you buy the Paladin/Errant Kit and just take some bits from an existing Warden/Crusader/Gallant kit you own, but that requires careful planning of who gets what weapon.

Thank you sir, very helpful!