Tuesday, May 18, 2021

From GregB: Knights for GW's "Adeptus Titanicus"

Acastus Knights for Adeptus Titanicus - kits from GW.

Hi everyone! It looks like it will still be quite a while before any meaningful vaccine supplies make their way to my part of Northern Ontario here in Canada, so I hope you won't mind seeing a few more submissions...for this one, we continue with the war machines of Games Workshop's grim and dark future. These particular machines are "Knights" - specifically, "Acastus" Knights. They are multi-part plastic kits from GW, part of the model range for the game Adeptus Titanicus.

Rear view showing the armour plates on the back of the torso and legs.

What is a "Knight" in the dark sci-fi world of GW? No horses here. It is, rather, yet another large walking war machine. Of course, in the grim darkness of the future, "large" is a relative concept...you see, the Knights are large war machines - they would tower over normal humans. But they are nonetheless small compared to the massive Titans. Knights only have a single pilot. The weapons mounted on a Knight, while destructive to enemy vehicles, infantry and fortifications, have a limited impact compared to the neighbourhood-and-city crushing armaments of the large battle Titans like the Reaver class example I posted last week.

Energy weapons ready to blast enemies to particles.

In the world of GW's Adeptus Titanicus, the Knights are organized into "households", pseudo-medieval orders which serve as a sort of combat auxilia to the Titan Legions. Thus when the Titans go to battle, the Princeps of the great war engines are often accompanied by groups of Knights. These machines need to act carefully on the battlefield where Titans are present, but when used with cunning they can be a serious pain for your enemies. They can harry flanks and distract opponents - and if they get close to the enemy Titans, they can cause critical damage and even score kills on their much larger opponents.

There are some rocket launchers mounted on the top of the hull...you can model them closed up, but where is the fun in that? :)

There are many, many different classes of Knight available. These Acastus Knights are the largest class of Knight available...about as large as a Knight can get, nearly, but not quite as large as the small "scout" Titans. As such, the weapon systems on them hit hard, and their armour is a bit more robust. Acastus Knights can certainly threaten enemy Titans, and even take a bit of a beating, but are not as mobile (even if they are much more mobile than the huge Titans). These two Knights are painted in the red-and-black-gold colours I use for the loyalist Knights in my Adeptus Titanicus collection.

Ready to fight in the name of The Emperor. I'm sure Horus is laughing somewhere...

These kits are very, very nicely done by GW. Real beauties to work on, with tons of tiny details. As far as backstories go in GW's 30k/40k setting, I must say I am indifferent to the stories of the Knights (the Titan Legions are SO much cooler), but there are many out there who enjoy all of the Knights. If you are one of those folks, you will be blown away by these kits. The detail is insane - you even get a choice of different auxiliary weapons (either lascannons or autocannons). Wow. 

"Family photo" of my upgraded loyalists for Adeptus Titanicus.

With these two Knights now stepping into the line, the rebel and loyalist sides to my collection are balanced out, with the same amount of God engines available to each side. I'm not sure why that should matter - we can't even get together to game anyway - but is it the sort of thing that lingers in my hobby brain. Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this recent run of Adeptus Titanicus kit. I think some other GW subjects will soon be appearing here as I continue to wait for a chance to get a vaccine...

13 comments:

  1. Hoi Greg, those Knights are really cool! As I understand it, another big difference between the Knights and God machines is that the former are piloted by just one pilot while the latter need a large crew. Also to what household does your pair of knights belong to?

    Cheers Sander

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    1. Thanks Sander! Yes, you are right - the Knights have a single pilot, while Titans have crews of multiple specialists, all under the command of a Princeps.
      I haven't named my Knight Household...they are just the "loyalists" one. I may add a name someday :)

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    2. Well that won't do: you should try to come up with a Challenge related Household like the Household of House Campbell

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    3. Haha, that might be one approach Sander, maybe for the next edition of the Challenge :)

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    4. Good gravy, a House Campbell would be horrible. They'd be hipster, misanthropic introverts, very overprotective of their turf. Wait, that sounds perfect for a Knight household...

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  2. There's no stopping you, is there? Another pair of awesome machines. The red-and-black-gold colour scheme works very well and they are once again painted fantastically well. I loved the tactical background too! I certainly would not mind seeing more of these machines, Greg. I don't know the game though; are there are only massive war machines or are there more "conventional" troop types too, like, say, infantry?

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    1. Thank you Martijn!
      To answer your question, "Adeptus Titanicus" only involves the fighting between the big machines. But GW once had a game which included all elements, from Titans to tanks to infantry, called "Epic". This game still has many fans (myself included), and we wonder/hope if GW might re-release that game one day as they did with "Adeptus Titanicus".

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  3. I think the Knights of House Winnipegus Jetsium look really quite imposing!

    The evil chaos ones could perhaps be the Torontus Leafisium Maplumniums? Everyone knows how evil they are after all ;)

    I got to see my mates ones this week to see the scale and they are a hefty scale which allows for all the detail you’ve picked out - excellent work!

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    1. Cheers Jamie! I hope seeing your friends' models inspires you to join the Adeptus Titanicus madness :)

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  4. Gorgeous looking knights, Greg. The Acastus are certainly brutes as far as the Knights go. They seem to dwarf the standard knights in both height and bulk. Hopefully they can score a few 'engine kills' for you.

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  5. They look superb, dude. I love the baroque red and gold livery you've given them. I haven't seen the stats on these, but I assume they could be quite nasty if piloted well.

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