Adeptus Titanicus – Questoris Knights with Thunderstrike Gauntlets and Rocket Pods

The Imperial Knights receive an upgrade and now have full access to the armoury of the Questoris Knights, incl. the new Thunderstrike Gauntlets and Rocket Pods.

Knights are smaller and less powerful versions of Imperial Titans, piloted by a single Knight commander, called scion, and not by a crew of princeps and moderati. With the knights being much smaller than Warhound Scout Titans, they can only to a limited amount carry titan weapon systems into battle. The Knights were introduced to Epic / Space Marine in UK White Dwarf #126 in June 1990, and a few years later in December of 1994 updated as part of the new editions of this game, Epic Titan Legions. Some of the new classes even derivate from the old names and types. There were Paladins, Lancers and Wardens, and those came back in the current variant as well. In addition knights had tiers, Squire, Knight and Lord, along with Senechal. Something that was picked up in the latest rules for Warhammer 40,000 to a degree.

The regular Knights never were released before the plastic kit in 2014 for Warhammer 40,000. Not a resin kit by Forge World, nor by Armorcast. They just prepared a prototype, that never made it into production. As for the Epic knights, those were blisters with metal miniatures, beside the boxed set of Knight Paladins. A Imperial Knight, in our case the Questoris Knights, has a weapon mount in each arm and optionally on top. There are multiple patterns or weapon configurations for the Questoris, connecting them with the old classes, like Crusader, Errant or Warden.

The Questoris Knight kit for Adeptus Titanicus is strongly connected to the Warhammer 40.000 model. The design is basically scaled down to the 8mm scale and covers the different heads and weapon options that were introduced since 2014 and further upgrades from the Warden / Gallant kit, with the exception of the Crusader layout. If we will see a Forge World set, to build for example the Knight Preceptor is unclear, but possible depending on the success and further campaign books. The Knight Valiant and Castellan are not (yet?) available for Adeptus Titanicus.

I have already introduced the Imperial Knights, the basic kit of this unit, in the past, along with the Cerastus Knights. So parts and segments of this article will cover the same topics as the old review did. The Imperial Knight box got an additional weapon sprue, covering the gauntlets and rocket pods. Those are available as a boxed set for 32,50 EUR with 3 Knights, or as an upgrade blister pack with enough parts to upgrade 6 knights for 12 EUR.

The box comes with a medium sized and a small sized sprue and an assembly instruction leaflet. Three 40mm round bases and a decal sheet of multiple knight houses, Makabius, Vyronii, Malinax and Coldshroud. The Casting is properly done, the sprue itself was slightly warped but that didn't have any effects on the parts themself.

The instructions were updated to cover the new parts (new heads, gauntlets and rocket pods) but in the same process turned down in quality by a bit. The old assembly instructions were full colour, incl. colour samples of the houses, where as the new one is kept in black-and-white and printed on regular paper.

The main sprue is the same as with the old kit, covering all the bits and pieces to build three knights. The new sprue has three rocket pods, three melta guns (one is already part of the main sprue, as an option to the heavy stubber), and three left and right close combat weapons each, along with three new heads. Casting is good as mentioned above, on some parts cleaning mould lines is a bit tricky, as the parts are delicate. For example along the legs as the mould line goes across the rivets.

The upper body of the knights is the same for all three. The legs are the same parts but in different positions, so you have one standing broad, and the others with either the left or right leg a bit in front. Be aware as these are different parts and may not fit when mixed, to keep them seperated while cutting them from the sprue. The upper body is added by a ball-joint to the hips, so you can angle / turn the poses.

The weapon options grew with the upgrade. You could build a close combat knight if you wanted to, with a gauntlet and reaper chainsaw, but I don't see the benefit of it, therefore used the combination gauntlet and ranged weapon. Please note, that of the ranged weapon systems only one per option is included, so you can not build three knights with the gatling cannon. For that you would have to buy the box multiple times. The avenger gatling cannon is the only one that has a symmetrical layout and could be mirrored to be used on the left arm, as I did, without looking odd.

As for the heads and shoulder weapons, the regular sprue covers three different heads with further three designs in the upgrade. You get three heavy stubbers and one + three melta guns.

The rocket pods are build from three parts, a middle piece incl. the top cover and the front and back panel. They are added to a pinhole on top of the carapace, that was already planned in the initial layout of the sprue. Due to the connection, you can turn them by 360° if you wanted to.

And a lance of 9 knights, divided into banners of 3, with the same weaponry and lead by a high scions with rocket pod and gauntlet.

The Imperial Knights are the only unit of Adeptus Titanicus so far, that is available as a regular Games Workshop plastic kit (incl. different variation) and not as a resin kit from Forge World. The kit of an Imperial Knight Warden or Gallant costs 125 EUR, and as usuall with the 40k kits compared to the AT around 4 times taller. We continue with the our invented Titan-benchmark euro per inch ratio, the Adeptus Titanicus Knight beats the Warhammer 40k Knight with 7,22 EUR/Inch (32,5 EUR for 3 times 1,5 Inch excl. the pods) to 20,83 EUR/Inch (125 EUR for 6 Inch excl. the pods). The Imperial Knights for Adeptus Titanicus are slightly taller than a Primaris Space Marine.

Along with the slightly posable arms and ball-point hip, you can bring more variation to these sculpts. They are not identical, but close. And we see, what a small upgrade sprue can add to an existing kit.

Conclusion
Tough. The box went up from 25 to 32,50 EUR for a small weapon upgrade and Games Workshop pulled the regular unit from the shelves, making it Mail-Order exclusive. The kit was already borderline priced at 25 EUR for 3 miniatures in the beginning and that hasn't been improved by this, as you want to use them as a lance or at least multiple banners, and then the prices stack. For comparison, with the other side games, like Necromunda oder Blood Bowl the same money gives you two proper sprues and a total of 10-12 miniatures.

Besides that, the weapon options could have been part of the initial release, so this splitting has an unnecessary DLC taste to it. They could have made the sprues smaller, just cover two knights per sprue, but add more weapon options (for example mirrored gun shields to use them on the other arm) and give you two sprues per box. That would still stream line production and double the output of sprues / half the fixed costs.

I like the kit, it assembles well and the fit is proper. The options are good, not superb, but good and as mentioned above, the only problem is self-inflicted by the odd price badge. Any how, if you're interested in buying a larger number of these, there are rumours that we will see a knight battleforce for Adeptus Titanicus around christmas (no details on the content yet), so waiting a bit might give you a better deal.

If you have access to for example Adeptus Mechanicus bits, you could probably convert a Questoris Knight Styrix or Knight Magaera. I'll see if I can cover that in a seperate article.

Warhammer 40,000 and Adeptus Titanicus are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.