Start Competing: Imperial Knights Tactics
The Imperial Knights are unlike the other forces of the Imperium; they field not squads of infantry nor fleets of tanks but instead take the field in towering war machines out of the ancient past. The smallest of these is the Armiger-class, broadly equivalent to a Redemptor Dreadnought, but looming above them are the mighty engines of the Questoris-class and Dominus-class – not to mention the Cerastus and Acastus Knights found in the Imperial Armour index. Though not as gigantic as the full-sized Titans of the Legios, Knights are the biggest things you’re likely to see on the battlefields of the 41st millennium, and present a unique playstyle for you and an unusual challenge for your opponent.
Faction Overview
As a faction entirely consisting of vehicles, and fairly heavyweight vehicles at that, the Imperial Knights lack many of the key tools you’d expect to use in 10th edition 40k – they have no screening units, no cheap action-doers, nothing that you would want to stick on an objective and leave quietly sitting there for the rest of the game. They can supplement this to an extent with the Agents of the Imperium, but there’s a hard limit on how many of those you can take.
The compensation for this is that every one of your units hits reasonably hard, and can take a punch in return – your opponent’s boltguns and lasrifles aren’t likely to make too much of an impact on a Knight Paladin, though be wary of stacking effects which can turn those humble-looking weapons into deadly Knight-killers.
As well as being enjoyable and somewhat different to play, Knights are also a great army from an access point of view. Though the individual kits look expensive, you need surprisingly few of them to put an army on the table, and they take simple painting techniques well – so if you’re looking for a second army to give you a different spin on 40k, or are a newer player trying to get to the table with appropriately chivalrous haste, the Knights offer great potential. On the other hand, they’re also a fantastic hobby project, with the wide-open spaces of their armour plating offering enormous possibilities for showing off all kinds of techniques.
How to Play Imperial Knights in Warhammer 40k
Looking for advice on how to play Imperial Knights? From getting started to playing at competitive events, we’ve got you covered with these articles.
- Our Review of Codex: Imperial Knights
- Detachment Focus: Questor Forgepact
- Competitive Stats for the Imperial Knights
- The Lore Explainer: Imperial Knights
- Hammer of Math: Knight Shields
- Hammer of Math: Imperial Knights Odds and Ends
Detachments
Imperial Knights armies have access to four Detachments in the codex, plus the Questor Forgepact from Grotmas. We’ve got summaries of them below, but for a deep dive into each, click through to the related Detachment Focus article.
Valourstrike Lance Detachment Focus
Valourstrike Lance is your default Detachment, letting you reroll advance rolls and giving all your Knights’ weapons Assault. It mostly focuses on getting your Knights up the board, into the fight, and around the table, helping pretty much everything in the codex. This is also the only Detachment with Rotate Ion Shields, so if you were leaning on that one a lot, this’ll be home for you.
Gate Warden Lance Detachment Focus
Gate Warden Lance is an odd one, forcing you to play defense as your models need to remain on a designated line on the board to get the most out of it. It’s unusual and not our favorite, but it’s an appreciable attempt to do something different with the army.
Questoris Companions Detachment Focus
Questoris Companions is for those who think Honored is so nice they’d like it twice. You get to stack honored deeds and qualities, with the caveat that your enhancements get spent, only reloading after getting honored again.
Spearhead-At-Arms Detachment Focus
Spearhead-At-Arms is an Armiger-focused Detachment, making the little guys Battleline and letting your Bondsman abilities extend out further and to more Armigers per turn.
Questor Forgepact Detachment Focus
Hobby
Want to know how to paint your Imperial Knights? From simple block colours to get them on the table to advanced heraldry displaying the honours of your household, check out How to Paint Everything: Imperial Knights.
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