The spiky degenerates have had their turn; now it’s time for the emperor’s towering loyal sons to show off what they can do. With the release of Codex: Imperial Knights, we finally have a set of Crusade rules for the faction, giving us a fully fleshed-out way to run them in tenth edition Crusade campaigns. But how do these rules stack up, and what do you need to know about them? In this review we’ll focus on all of the rules, what we like about them, and things to watch out for.

If you missed our review of the book that’s more competitively minded, you can find that here.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for review purposes.

Pilot and Knight

The Imperial Knights household got together and came up with a pretty interesting new Crusade mechanic to differentiate themselves from their spikier brethren with the Pilot and Knight system. What it boils down to is whenever you add an Imperial Knight unit to your Crusade roster, you will have to also generate a pilot. That pilot will need to choose their Sworn Alignment by choosing between the Questoris Imperialis, the Questoris Mechanicus or the Freeblades. You will also need to keep in mind whenever you muster your Crusade army, you can’t include Imperialis and Mechanicus in the same battle.

Over the course of Crusade Campaign, your pilots will undertake A Noble’s Duty and gain new abilities called Masteries which will empower whatever robot they are piloting at the time. This is important as during the campaign, you will be able to switch out pilots and move them into Knights with different loadouts via Agendas and Requisitions and screwing up in the Chivalric Quests.

Whenever you remove an Imperial Knight unit from your roster for whatever reason, you can choose to retain a pilot who becomes unseated ready to move into the next available chassis. Pilots can also be binned at any time too.

Chivalric Quests

Much like the various Space Marine chapters and their Oathsworn Campaigns, Imperial Knights will swear to go on one of four different Chivalric Quests, each with slightly different goals and all with idea of gaining Chivalric points which then can be used to purchase and upgrade Masteries for your pilots.

You will need to gain at least four Chivalric points over three battles, otherwise you will have brought Dishonour to your house and kin. All this really means is you can not start a new Chivalric Quest and earn Chivalric points until you have completed the Death Before Dishonour Agenda, where your Warlord needs to redeem themselves by either killing another warlord, murking three units, or ending up on an objective in your enemy’s deployment zone. You can also choose to give up on a Chivalric Quest at any point but you still will need to do the Death Before Dishonour agenda before swearing your Knights onto the next Chivalric Quest.

Which quest you choose will largely be dictated by your play style and what your opponent will likely be bringing to the table with them over the course of the next three games. To Strike Down the Unclean Behemoths will give you points whenever you destroy Vehicles and Monsters and To Stamp Out the Champions of Dishonour rewards you for each Character stomped into a gooey puddle. To Raise High the Pennants of Victory wants you standing victoriously over objective markers and To Secure the Realm is happiest when you’re standing in the centre of the board or in your opponent’s deployment zone to gain you those sweet Chivalric points.

Masteries

Once you have finished a Chivalric Quest, you may then go spend however many Chivalic points earnt on purchasing Masteries for your pilots. Whenever you assign the Chivalric points to one of your pilots, you must select one of the eight Masteries on offer keeping in mind you can not have another pilot with the same Mastery and some of the Masteries are locked into a specific Sworn Alignment.

There are three levels of honour for each Mastery and your pilot will rise through them with every Chivalric point you spend.

• Aspiring 1-3 Chivalric points
• Esteemed 4-6 Chivalric Points
• Virtuous 7+ Chivalric Points

One important thing to note is a pilot cannot have more than 6 Chivalric points assigned to them when they are assigned to a Armiger. They’re just a little guy at that point, and such lofty ambitions are too much for them.

• Mastery of Obduracy increases the model’s Objective Control characteristic by 1, 3 or 5 so long as they are not Battle-shocked.
• Mastery of Tuition hands out a bonus 1XP to a number of other Knights depending on your level of honour.
• Mastery of the Clarion is for the bigger lads and increases the range of its Bondsman ability depending on your level of honour.
• Mastery of Ambush is some sneaky space elf bullshit redeployment shenanigans starting with just the giant robot in question and ending up with two of them suddenly leaping out of a bush.
• Master of Condemnation starts out as a watered down version of the Space Marine’s Oath of Moment where once per battle everyone can re-roll ranged hit rolls of 1 against an enemy unit within 18” of this model. The fully upgraded version is everyone of your Shooting phase letting you reroll hit and wound rolls of 1.
• Mastery of Mechanisms oddly enough is for the Questor Mechanicus pilots and it’s a roll of duct tape allowing you heal other Imperial Knights each Command phase.
• Mastery of the Joust on the other hand is for the Questor Imperialis pilots will increase their movement speed, then allow them to fire weapons after advancing and finally charge after advancing.
• Master of Execution is the purview of the Freeblade pilots and allows to you to slap a nice big target on an enemy unit at the start of the game and, depending on the level of honour, your weapons will deal extra damage and gain Sustained Hits (either 1 or D3).

Agendas

The Agendas here are pretty straightforward: There are four which are pretty typical and fairly easy to achieve, along with the aforementioned fifth agenda, Death Before Dishonour, which is used to remove Burdens or let you start a new Chivalric Quest after you bollocked up the previous one.

The Sally Forth agenda will be a gimme for those running a more melee based Knights list as you will hand out 2xp to units hanging around the opponent’s deployment zone at the end of the battle. Having three or more units chilling out in the ashes of what was once the enemy stronghold will also add one to your current Chivalric Quest.

Break Their Will wants you to really twist that knife when you crush your poor opponent as it hands out 2xp to up to three of your units when you have successfully wrecked half of your foes forces by destroying them, reducing them to Half Strength or just breaking their will with Battle-shock. For the bonus tally mark for your Chivalric Quest, you’ll need to do it to their entire army.

Petitioned for Aid is your usual ‘Opponent chooses an objective for you to divert a chunk of your army towards’ with 3xp for the Knight left holding the point at the end of the game. The bonus Chivalric Quest tally is given out if you have made sure that no enemy dares to remain within 6” of the chosen objective.

Honour Must Be Satisfied lets you paint a massive target on your choice of a particularly annoying Monster, Vehicle or Character. You are then tasked with raining death and destruction on that poor chump and hand out 2xp to the model that lands the killing blow. Manage to sort them out before the fourth battle round will net you the bonus Chivalric Quest tally.

Death Before Dishonour sadly isn’t all about sending off your injured Knight with its tarnished honour in a glorious last stand holding back an overwhelming tide of foe as they seek to redeem themselves… because that would be too cool. Instead it’s the “opsie, I somehow mucked up my previous Chivalric Quest and now my Warlord has to carry their weight for a change” or “That burden was funny at first but it needs to go stat” At the end of the battle, the Warlord/Burdened will need to achieve one of three objectives; destroy three or more units; bump off the enemy Warlord; or stand proud on an objective in the opponent’s deployment zone. Success rewards 3xp and you can remove a Burden or start a new Chivalric quest.

Requisitions

For a codex that keeps banging on about honour, they did manage to sneak in a Coward’s Path Req for those in danger of screwing up their Chivalric Quest. Those in need of one more battle to try and turn things around can use the Failure is Not an Option for 2RP.

For those that both want to have cake and eat it as well, Loyal Bondsman for 1RP will let you choose an Armiger and a Questoris at the start of a game and for the duration of that battle, the Armiger is always considered to be always be under the effect of that Questoris’s Bondsman ability.

Beanith: Truly what an epic way to represent a bond forged in the heat of battle… *reads lore* oh wait, the Armiger pilot is neurally slaved rendering them subordinate. Peak Warhammer vibes.

Hand of the Sacristan lets you move your Pilot from an existing Knight to a brand new Knight so long as their Level of Honour is Esteemed or Virtuous for 2RP. That new Knight unit immediately gains 6XP and the Blooded rank.

Oath of the Freeblade takes one of your pilots with a Level of Honour that is Aspiring or higher and for 1RP, you can change that pilot’s Sworn Alignment to Freeblade and change their current Mastery to another for the low low price of 1RP. The kicker is the pilot also takes on a Burden for their trouble.

Going back to the wanting cake and eating said cake bit from earlier, Autonomy in Exile for 1RP is purchased when you select a Mastery for a pilot with the Freeblade Sworn Alignment. This lets you choose any Mastery regardless of Sworn Alignment restrictions.

Battle Scars and Burdens

Games Workshop has taken the Battle Scar system in an interesting direction with the Imperial Knights. Whenever one of your giant robot friends somehow gains a Battle Scar you will first roll a D6, a result of 1-3 means you follow the main Crusade rules for gaining a Battle Scar which is then slapped on the Knight. Those that manage to roll a 4+ will instead gain a Burden for the Pilot.

Much like Battle Scars, gain all three and your pilot is killed in battle and removed from your roster. This would be terrible if it wasn’t for the Death before Dishonour agenda so it’s more of an inconvenience considering how the Burdens really aren’t too… burdensome.

Stain of Dishonour makes it so the unit can not be affected nor use their Bondsman abilities. Bonded in Shame reduces their Leadership by 1 and their Objective Control by 2. Rounding out the inconveniences is Desperate for Redemption which means you can’t Fall Back

Crusade Relics

The Imperial Knights have a fairly standard set of relics on offer that shouldn’t be too much of an issue for other people to deal with. The Artificer relics look like they should be fun to have in your back pocket. Equerry’s Vox lets the bearer select a second Armiger within 9” of the first Armiger to also be affected by its Bondsman ability. Oathbreaker Guidance System adds Precision and Ignores Cover to the model’s Heavy Stubber or Multi-lasers to help chip away at Characters hiding behind some meatshields. Heart of Sol is a powerful Plasma Reactor that sadly doesn’t overcharge your Deadly Demise to leave an even bigger crater should you somehow manage to blow up. Instead during your Command Phase you can activate this relic which causes you to take D3 mortal wounds, after which you can then select one of three different effects which last until your next Command phase:

• Add 2” to your Move Characteristic
• Add 2 to Advance and Charge Rolls
• Select a weapon and add 1 to the Wound rolls.

Antiquity is when the relics start to get a little spicy with Sanctuary giving your model a 5+ invulnerable save against Melee attacks and the Armour of the Sainted Ion increases your Armour save to 2+.

Finally the Legendary Helm of the Nameless Warrior slaps the Devastating Wounds ability on your Melee Weapons to help reduce how often you hear the phrase “I have a 4+ Invulnerable save” from Custodes players and their ilk.

Final Thoughts

Beanith: Another excellent round of Crusade content. Admittedly the Burdens were a let down but I do love the Chivalric Quest and Masteries which more than makes up for it. Having the Masteries tied to the pilot and being able to move them from a melee unit like the Knight Gallant to a ranged Knight Crusader is cool but I can’t wait to hear stories about Armiger pilots moving up in ranks and climbing into the cockpit of a Valiant or Castellan.

TheChirurgeon: If I’m honest, these are fine but nowhere near as cool as the Chaos Knights Crusade rules. Apart from those having you manage your household/lesser lords in a novel way, they also had you upgrading the chassis on your big Knights, basically letting you play BattleTech. Which is is more or less what every Knights player actually wants to do anyways, I’m told. That said, if you’re running a campaign it’s worth keeping an eye on your Knights players – Knights are exceptionally good right now and they were already a problem in smaller games with fewer units. Adding beefy upgrades to them and the armigers early on could cause balance problems in your campaign that could leave some players feeling dejected, especially if they haven’t added a bunch of anti-vehicle/anti-Knight units to their Orders of Battle.

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