This weekend marks a flurry of releases, the largest of which is the 10th edition release of Codex: Imperial Knights, which means it’s time for another Questoris Knight upgrade sprue. This time around we can now build the Knight Defender, a double gun Knight that provides defensive bonuses to the models behind it. Alongside the defender are two new Space Marine characters: Aethon Shaan of the Raven Guard and Darnath Lysander of the Imperial Fists. In this review we’ll talk about how these kits stack up, what it’s like assembling them, and tips and tricks for modeling and painting them.
We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these kits for review purposes.
The Knight Defender
The Imperial Questors Knight kit has now been split into two SKUs. The following Knights can be built from either kit:
- Knight Paladin
- Knight Errant
- Knight Gallant
- Knight Crusader
- Knight Warden
The first of the split kits is the Knight Preceptor/Canis Rex box, which includes the half sprue needed to build either of those two models. Here, we’re looking at the Knight Defender kit, which has an alternate half sprue with the Knight Defender bits on it:
There’s not a whole lot here for if you’re just getting this to upgrade one of the more mundane knights. Because the big honking guns, take up most of the real estate, you don’t really get too many spare bits for non-Defender models.Â
If you’ve built a Questoris Knight before, there’s not a whole lot that will surprise you here. Beyond the two new guns on the main arm, there’s an alternative top hatch that is intended for the Defender, an internal face with more eyes, two new faceplates and the inexplicable option to downgrade the Ironhail heavy stubber on the rapid-fire battlecannon with a phosphor blaster. That last one stumped me for a bit to find in the instructions, and I’m not sure why anyone would ever go for it. I guess it is preferable to no option.
For the Defender itself, the plasma cannon is mounted on the same gun shield that the rapid fire battle cannon and thermal cannon use. The conversion beamer, despite looking very similar to the gun mounting that the avenger gatling cannon uses, is on a different arm altogether. The void shield generator hat is the same as the missile pods and Icarus autocannons – a little nub mount that looks like it should be a tight friction fit but definitely is not.
If you’re a magnetization sicko, there’s nothing new here, so you can feel free to magnetize the options exactly how you would any other Questoris Knights in your collection. I suppose the phosphor blaster option for the battle cannon is new, but the guns look almost identical and I see no reason to magnetize it.
Aethon Shaan
Rob:Â Shaan’s the coolest model in the new marine batch in my estimation, and part of that is his sick “leaning on a big rock” pose. This of course also makes him more of a pain to assemble, and he comes on two sprues, with half of his components being for his outsized hero rock. There are some cool components on here, and the visually the most interesting – and biggest pain – were his feathered mantle, which looks like a pair of wings. These sit on the back of the model, under the jump pack.
These went together pretty well, and were less of a hassle than I expected. The jump pack hides most of that seam, and the rest is behind the model, so it’s all pretty easy to work with.
I sub-assembled this model in three key parts: The main body of Shaan, his hero rock/base, and his jump pack. The model slots in very well onto the hero rock so I wasn’t super worried about gluing him after priming – and that went together without a hassle. That said, if there’s one part of this I regretted, it’s not putting the hero rock off-center. I mostly put it in the middle of the base, underestimating how far Shaan would hang off it. I should have put it as off-center as possible, which would have then pushed the model’s center of gravity back toward the center after I glued Shaan on.
As I write this I’m about 75% done painting Shaan and he’s been pretty easy. I’m at the stage where I’ve laid down the base coats and glued him to the hero rock along with his jump pack. Now there’s just a lot of detail work to be done and more shading on the black armor but on the whole, this guy has been easy to work with, paint, and assemble. Surprisingly so, given how complex he looks.
Captain Darnath Lysander
Jack:Â This is one of the easiest models I’ve built and painted in a while, with the caveat that you need to sub-assemble the cape and shield. The cape is in two parts – the right shoulder pad and the back of the cape, and the two pieces glue together extremely easily. I also left the shield off for painting as it’s entirely separate from the arm. Had I fully assembled him then I suspect reaching the inside of the cape and back of the shield/left arm would be a little difficult.
The only thing to note while assembling him after painting is that the cape requires a little bit of wiggling to get it into place – keep an eye on the edges of the torso around the left shoulder and the inside edge of the right shoulder on the cape to make sure you haven’t scraped any paint off.
My only wish is that there was a proper squad of new assault terminators to go with him, rather than relying on an ancient kit.
Final Thoughts
That wraps up our look at the trio of new model releases, but if you missed our reviews of the new rules, it’s worth checking those out today. On the whole these are three solid kits that were fun to build, and the rules paired with each make them worth picking up.
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