More Knight Variants

So how many viable Knight versions are there now, counting Forgeworld?  Six?  Seven?

There are a lot of things you can do with Knights these days.  And a lot of them can be done pretty easily with Paperhammer.  Rather than focus on the individual variants like the Warden or Gallant, though, I thought I could take a  few minutes and just go over the new weapons that come with them.  I mean, the basic body, head, and legs are the same for all of these models.  The weapons are the main difference, so let’s add a few more to the basic battle cannon/ reaper chainsword that come with the fantastic classic Knight Paladin template the Newobmij made.

The thunderstrike gauntlet is essentially a big power fist.  I talked about how to build an arm last time with the Knight Lancer.  However, while it’s much simpler, I don’t think the box-fist I explained then would work here.  It won’t have the Ion Shield to shift focus. In fact, now the fist is the focus of attention.

Print out an extra knee-cylinder.  It’s on page five and six of the template (one for each leg).  Build it, but don’t add on the extra rivets or 1/8” discs for detail.  All we need is the cylinder.

Defiler claw to show fingers

Now print out some of the claw-fingers from the Defiler model template.  This will need three fingers and a thumb.  Yes, the GW model has four fingers, but we’re a bit limited for space.  I’m sure a clever person out there can figure out how to do four without making it look too awkward.  Glue three of the fingers along the cylinder, perhaps “fanning” them out a bit.  Then attach the thumb so it lines up with the “pointer finger.”

Helpful Hint-- Whatever way you end up posing the fingers, consider having the thumb make contact with at least one of them and gluing it there.  It’s a small, subtle thing, but it will make this whole assembly much stronger to have multiple connections.  And you want it to be solid because you’re going to smack it against a Wraithlord or some Tyranid Warriors at least once a month if you’ve got a good gaming group.

Another Helpful Hint—It’d be possible to do some really nice detail on these with 1/4” and 1/8” in discs from a hole punch.  They could be mechanical joints on the sides of the fingers or “knuckles” on the tops.  I’d probably only do one or the other, though.

As a last touch, consider using a spare knee or ankle armor piece to form a vambrace over the back of the fist.  Or maybe cut something a little more custom.  Either way, add on some rivets and purity seals and it’d be a solid-looking power fist.

For the carapace-mounted rocket/missile pod, you could just build a variation of the whirlwind launcher I made way, way back at the start of all this.  A box 1” tall, 2” wide, and 1 1/2” deep is a good base to start from.  A thin 1/8” by 1” strip of cardstock forms a divider down the front center.  Then I can do a nice alternating layout of 1/8” discs and 1/8” spaces which should give me nine “missiles” on each side.  Yes, that’s slightly less than the GW model, but if the people you’re playing with are complaining about that...

If I was feeling exceptionally clever, I’d also build a double-wide version of the armored hood from the battle cannon to put on the missile pod.  It’s good detail and a nice tie-in, design-wise.  Alternately, a 1/4” strip wrapped around the front and back edge would look very nice.  Again, add rivets and some purity seals to finish off details.

The avenger gatling cannon is going to be a lot simpler than it looks.  All you need to do is print out seven copies of the heavy stubber—the one that goes with the battle cannon.  It’s on page eight of the template.  Okay, technically you need eight of them so one can go on the left shoulder.  But for the gatling cannon, you need seven.

Build six of the heavy stubbers just like I did for the Knight Paladin.  On the seventh, we want to cut off the majority of the barrel and just leave the thicker part at the base.  We’re going to call this the core, for reasons which will soon be apparent.

Important Note—Mark the now-missing edge before cutting off the rest of the barrel to make sure the core ends up the same size as all the other bases.

Once all seven elements are dry and solid, take one stubber barrel and the core.  Glue them together so the base of the barrel is flush against the core.  Keep their individual seams as close to each other as possible, and make sure the two pieces are parallel.  If they’re not parallel, this isn’t going to work.

Once the two pieces are joined, take a second barrel and glue it so it’s touching both the core and the first barrel (and its seam is close to the core).  Viewed end on, they should form a triangle.  Once the glue had dried, add a third barrel so it’s touching the second and the core . Now it should form a diamond.  Let it dry and keep adding, making sure each one touches the last barrel added and the core.  If everything is parallel and the same size, it should look like this from the front (with the core in blue).

           

Wait for this whole assembly to dry and then attach it to the cannon body.  It should fit perfectly with the existing armored hood, although it would also be easy to add a more rounded one that ran along the overall curve of the gatling assembly.  And that would be a little closer to the existing GW model as well.

And there it is.  You can spend five or six hundred dollars building an army of Imperial Knights... or you could spend five or six weekends and have them for maybe five or six dollars, total (not counting all the cereal and frozen pizza to get cardstock).  If you started right now, it wouldn’t be hard to have five different Knights done by mid-June, Fourth of July weekend at the latest.

Next up... I’ve been working on something big.  A crossover project with my friend Marcus who runs the Atomic Warlords page.  Let’s just say there’ve been a few too many Knights, and not enough for the xenos among us.