This is my review of the Codex Imperial Knights for 10th edition Warhammer 40,000. An Imperial Knight in Warhammer isn't just some guy in shining armour, it's a guy in a battle mech. Imperial Knights tower over pretty much any other Warhammer miniature, with even a big Space Marine maybe reaching 38mm in height and an Imperial Knight measuring around 230mm. Being an Adeptus Mechanicus player, I own one of the large Knights (Questoris pattern) and several smaller Knights (Armiger pattern) and, no matter what they're up against, they're an impressive sight on the battlefield.
One of the most intimidating things about building an Imperial Knight model is, honestly, all the amazing options that come in the box. No complaints from me about getting spare bits, but you can spend days trying to choose what you're going to build. To make matters worse, as is the case with Citadel models, the box of plastic parts treats the model as "just" a model. You don't get any lore with it, so all you have to base your build on are the [very good] instructions. That gets you to the how to build, but it doesn't answer the questions of what and why. That's a decision I can respect, actually, because there are those people who build and paint but never play. And that's one reason the codex exists.
I've written previously about the [relationship between miniatures and (http://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_relationship-of-citadel-miniatures-to-game-rules) game rules, and also about lore and miniatures are closely bound within the Warhammer 40,000 setting. The Imperial Knights codex exemplifies both of these ideals. You can open a model kit for an Imperial Knight and make arbitrary decisions about what weapon load-out to attach to it but, if you're going to put it on the tabletop, you probably want to understand which datasheet you're signing up to run. You may also want to know what battlefield role the model is "supposed" to play (insofar as its weaponry influences how you utilise it on the tabletop, which it doesn't have to do but there are optimal uses of, say, a chainsword rather than a thermal cannon.) The codex gives you a bunch of material to base your decisions upon.
The first 14 pages give you the in-world history of Imperial Knights, the Knight houses, and their relationships to the Imperium of Man and to the Priesthood of Mars. If you've read a few books, like Titandeath, then a lot of this information is familiar but this may be the first time you've read it as a linear history, from before the Imperium existed up to the modern setting.
There's also a lot of great information in those first dozen pages about how Knight houses are governed, how the houses divide power on the planets they inhabit, and to what authority they'v e sworn fealty. It's a subtle lore thing that's technically neither here nor there, but then again all lore is like that if you're apathetic enough about your hobby. Fictional lore being one of the things I am most un-apathetic about, I love that the history in this section gives me lots of great reasons that my Knights are painted in the same paint scheme as my Adeptus Mechanicus army, and that they march alongside my Skitarii first and foremost. I've always known it made sense in my head and in the lore, I just didn't have the terminology to explain why, or the in-world context to formulate a backstory for it.
It seems silly, but just the first section of the book made me feel like I'd gotten my money's worth. The direct and pointed history it provides is a wealth of knowledge, and you get it all within 10 pages. Sometimes I feel like there's a lot being skipped in a lore book. Especially in late editions of games that churn out new lore books for every single edition, the lore sections can start to feel like obligatory summaries of all the books that came before because you just can't keep repeating the same history book after book. It happens with Forgotten Realms books, Lord of the Rings game material, and Warhammer. It's sort of unavoidable, but this codex feels like it struck the right balance, and I'm appreciating it.
The codex also helps you understand why there are so many variants on a standard design pattern. First of all, I love that the Imperial Knights do use a standard design pattern in both real life and in the lore. It makes sense both ways. Whether you're a 21st century nerd buidling a plastic model kit or you're a 41st century Sacristan maintaining a robot suit as big as a building, it makes sense that there would be common components used across different models. The fact that both the 90mm Armiger knights and the 230mm Questoris knights have essentially the same top shell design, and have the same basic structural frame, brings me joy every time I see them on the tabletop together. It's one of the single-most believable things in the fiction.
It also makes the model kits a little confusing, so the codex just spells it out for you. Here's exactly what's up with all the variants on the Questoris pattern, the largest and most terrifying knightly suit reserved for the most noble of pilots:
The larger Dominus-class knights, and the smaller Armiger knights, have far fewer variants.
That's a lot of the word "Knight" with a chivalric adjective after it, and I'm not here to say it wouldn't be more direct to just say, for instance, "the one with the las-impulsor and a hand" rather than "Knight Preceptor" (or "Canis Rex".) However, named variants do provide that extra bit of lore, in two different senses. First, it adds some ironic authenticity that classification of machinery would be so over-complex (or maybe you could argue "precise.") Second, it makes room for the lore to guide your roleplay. If you put a Knight Errant down on the table, then you may choose to have it charge into melee because that's what it's supposed to do. It doesn't have to. It does have ranged weaponry, so it could move slowly using artillery until an enemy unit is close at hand. But if you want to play it according to the canonical fiction, then the codex tells you how.
After the lore, there's page after page after glorious page all about the heraldry of various Knight houses. I appreciate details about uniforms and colour schemes in any case, not because I'm a button counter but because it's a form of visual lore. And also, very pragmatically, I'm no good at coming up with paint schemes for my models.
In this codex, there's even more to it, or at least there's more weight to it. In both lore and on the tabletop, there aren't that many Imperial Knights. I mean, there are "lots" because 40k is on a galctic scale, but as tanks are to infantry, so Knights are to tanks. Whether you're adding some Imperial Knights to an existing army or fielding an exclusively Imperial Knights army, you're only looking at half a dozen models at the most. It's worth spending some thought on how you're going to paint and decorate them.
And these are big models, too. There aren't 30 infantry soldiers to slap some paint on and trust that they'll look good enough in the crowd. You've only got a few of them on the table, so you probably want to make them look as good as you can, and also have a little roleplay backstory for why they are fighting.
The Army Rule for Imperial Knights emphasises the idea that the noble Knight Houses have codes of honour and oaths of fealty that influences how and why they fight. Before your army goes to battle, you roll a d3 for a Deed and another d3 for a Quality. A Deed adds a sort of secondary objective to the battle, and the Quality confers a bonus (free re-rolls, or increased weapon range, or improved Objective Control.)
There are 4 detachments:
I wasn't terribly impressed with these detachments. They seem sufficient in the sense that you're supposed to have a detachment to play, but none of them feel very exciting. Nobody's going to complain about bonuses, so these are fine.
I'm more excited about the combined Imperial Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus detachment provided by the Grotmas releases of 2025. But that's down to how I typically play my Imperial Knights, and my opinion may change if I ever get around to running just an Imperial Knight army.
I usually say that a codex for Warhammer 40,000 is mostly useful for people playing Warhammer 40,000, but this is one of those that's probably of interest even to people who don't play the game. If you're interested in the lore around Imperial Knights, this book has a tonne of great information about formal structures of nobles and Knight Houses, heraldry, traditions, and allegiances. You also get some great photos of dioramas depicting Imperial Knights in battle, and photos and drawings of how they're painted, which is of interest regardless of whether the Knight you're dreaming of is on your tabletop or just the one you've read about in a book.
Header photo by Seth Kenlon, Creative Commons cc0.