Goonhammer Reviews: Joytoy x Warhammer 40K House Terryn Imperial Knight Paladin

Ever wanted a fully painted action figure that could be a credible proxy for a Warlord Titan?  But one that was nowhere near as fragile or expensive or time consuming to build and paint as a Warlord Titan?  Or do you need something that isn’t Ultramarines to fill in a giant hole in your 1/18 scale Warhammer list?  Or do you just have the overwhelming urge to own one of the coolest pieces of Warhammer merch in existence and have an excess amount of unoccupied space in your living quarters?   If any of these appeal to you, you might want to consider the Joytoy x Warhammer 40K Imperial Knight line.   

Packaging

The Joytoy Knight comes shipped in an enormous box.  The shipping box is massive, but not as massive as the box a Haslab comes in.  Both the Ghost and the Sail Barge shipped in bigger and heavier boxes.  

Inside the shipper box is the Joytoy box with pictures of the figure on it.  It looks good but it’s not going to blow your socks off.  

Within the product box we find three layers of plastic trays.  The first tray holds the Knight’s torso and head in place, while the second holds the legs, the weapons, instruction manual, and the pilot.  These plastic trays did an excellent job in holding the big guy secure, while still being easy to remove.  

Assembly

This Knight has four parts that are supposed to be separate.  The arms and legs/lower torso connect to the upper torso via very long and thick metal pegs.  Getting the arms in was easy, but I felt I had to screw the legs and torso together.    This is actually easier than it sounds, because Joytoy apparently engineered the legs with a metal skeleton.  So despite the torso being big and top-heavy, the legs weigh so much more it can support the weight of the torso.

Sculpt

This big guy is, like almost every single Joytoy figure I’ve owned, a faithful recreation of the tabletop model.  All the proportions look correct, and it’s in-scale.  It features a fair amount of moving parts (pistons) that aren’t all that stiff, and there aren’t any really unsightly gaps.  

One thing to note is that the armor panels are attached to the Knight similarly to how they’re attached to the Knight models, which means they can come off and on with relative ease.  That feature is probably the killer app of this figure, as it means that you could theoretically remove all the panels and repaint them to your heart’s content.  The one caveat is that I do not know if the big shoulder panels are removable.  I did not really try to put those on and off, but it would not surprise me if they were based on how Joytoy’s shoulder paldron articulation works.  The top panel is not removable either.  

The Knight also has a fully detailed cockpit, which rivals some of the best from Hasbro’s golden age of vehicle cockpits.

The one knock on the sculpt is that you can easily see the seams where the toy’s various parts were glued together.  These are *mostly* sanded away during assembly, but that’s not really a thing for action figures.  The seam lines aren’t as bad as some action figures I own (Black Series R2-D2 infamously has a big mold line running through the middle of his dome), but they are as noticeable as they are inevitable.

Paint:

At both the Goonhammer Open and the NoVa Narrative, Knights cleaned up painting awards.   And it’s not hard to see why:  They are big figures with lots of flat panels upon which to put fun designs.   Folks rightfully go nuts.  Well, not me.  I am doing something different while I paint a Questoris Knight this summer.   But others most certainly are.  

That being said, GW has a specific heraldry pattern for their example Knights, and the Joytoy Knight Paladin follows that example to a tee.  We have highlights, fades, washes, weathering, and tampographs.  The figure’s paint job isn’t as vibrant as even my knights, but GW’s studio paint job isn’t vibrant.  It’s excellent, but not vibrant.  And you’re getting something similar here.  I don’t think the metallic paint works as well on the knight as it does on certain other figures, but one of the great things about this figure in *this* hobby is that if you don’t like it, you can repaint it.  

Poseability

In theory, this is an action figure and it is poseable.  And yes, it does feature head/neck, torso, leg, toe, and arm articulation. In reality, you’ll probably just want to find one specific leg pose because the legs are very heavy.   I suspect that if the Terryn Knight and the House Raven Knight Errant sell well, we’ll get Canis Rex and a sculpt with a fully-articulated Thunderstrike Gauntlet.  That will have a lot more articulation than a giant chainsaw that is bigger than a prop Star Trek Phaser.

Accessories

The Imperial Knight has one accessory: a pilot.  This Pilot is a grizzled male pilot, and is in-scale with the rest of the 1/18 scale Joytoy line.  The paintjob and articulation are good on this figure, and this pilot’s pauldrons are painted to match the Knight.  The pilot has an attached emergency case/battery/some Warhammery gizmo.  I’ll let someone in the comments tell me what it is.  The pilot has full articulation, and can fit into the cockpit with ease. 

The one thing I find somewhat questionable about the pilot is the gizmo case is attached to the pilot.  And the way you detach the case from the figure is to pull a plug out of the box.  This means the pilot has a random dangling attachment when you plug it into the cockpit.  There’s also no clear place for the gizmo.  

Action Features

The Imperial Knights light up.  The eyes have LEDs built into them, that you can allegedly activate by waving a magnet near the head.  However, the Knight does not come with batteries and I did not have any of the relevant battery immediately at hand while writing this review (1).  I probably won’t install the battery, because I always forget to take the batteries out of my very large toys/playsets and they inevitably explode.  This afflicts similarly-sized Hasbro pieces, like the AT-AT and AT-TE walkers.  

Stand Alone Ability

It stands alone and stable, as long as it has enough room to stand.  As I noted above, the legs have a metal skeleton to help support the weight.  The toes and feet want to support this figure.  That’s good, because the ability to stand alone without sagging over would be utterly unacceptable for this figure.  

Final Verdict

This is a very big and expensive action figure.  But when you compare it to similarly priced models in Warhammer 40K, similarly sized models in 40K, and similarly priced action figure centerpieces, I think the Joytoy Terryn Knight compares well against all three.  

For the price of a Joytoy Knight, you can get one of:

• 3 Knights Dominus or Questoris and a box of Armingers
• 3 Cerastus Knights (non-Atropos)
• 1 Acastus Knight
• 1 Titan body

That’s either several plastic kits to build and paint and base, or one resin kit to build and paint and base, or one incomplete resin kit that Rob and Greg both explained was a pain in the ass to build and base.  By contrast, assembly of the Joytoy Knight takes about five minutes.

Likewise, the thing is the size of a Warlord Titan but you don’t have to build, base, or paint that giant model.  You take it out of the box, plop it on the table, and boom you have the big boss for a campaign.  

The closest thing I have to this in action figure scale is the forthcoming Hasbro HasLab Star Wars Cantina playset, which allegedly takes about an hour to build and involves setting up 20-something action figures in order to take cool pictures.  Furthermore, a number of those action figures were released 20 years ago and right now are commanding big bucks on eBay.  With an Imperial Knight, it’s again 20 minutes from box to the photo booth and most of the line is currently available.  

I’m very happy with the purchase of my Imperial Knight, and will now eagerly try and figure out how to display it.  

1. Admittedly, I was at a pizza place in Arlington, Virginia while writing most of this, but I finished it at home and didn’t have the battery. 

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.