I'm currently preparing my Adeptus Mechanicus army for Armies on Parade. And I wanted some big impressive eye-catching centrepieces - I wanted Knights!
Step 1 was to do some research (you can tell I'm a librarian in real life, right?) So I devoured the original fluff and scoured the internet to see how other people had converted their Knights, and gathered all my findings and links into the uber-post here:
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=248882
My plan is to make a complete feudal Knightly household - House Nordcote (named after my mother's family, using their heraldry).
In the original fluff there were 7 different types of Knights. For now I'm making 4 of the 7:
- the basic Paladin, with battlecannon and chainsword
- the scout Lancer, with battlecannon and power lance
- the heavy Warden, with carapace-mounted missile launcher and twin gatling guns
- the anti-tank Crusader, with mini-quake cannon and twin-linked lascannon.
If I get time I'll add an Errant (meltacannon & powerfist) and a Baron (individualised & fancy suit), but this current list covers a nice spread of styles. I want each type to be clearly distinct, made from very different parts (and stealing ideas from all the coolest Knight models I found on the internet!) But I also want them to share common unifying elements - sentinel-cockpit-heads, loin-cloth-banners displaying matching family heraldry and a matching half-and-half colour scheme. My first challenge was the Paladin, the basic Knight. Here's the Epic models:
I made a non-specific Knight model from a Grey Knights dreadknight at the start of this year. With a bit of work, this became my Paladin. Here it is before any changes:
To update it into a Paladin it needed to have a battlecannon and a chainsword. Later I'll also repaint it slightly, and add the loin-cloth.
After testing out a few options for the battlecannon I decided that having it fire solid shells is hugely impractical - it'd need an absolutely massive magazine! So I made it into a sort of las-battlecannon instead, firing massive bolts of energy at the enemy. Much more AdMech. The gun is made from a Tau Ion Cannon's rear end and 3 sizes of plastruct tubing.
The chainsword was another difficult choice. The giant chainswords people put on their conversions always look a bit unwieldy to me, and cutting out all those individual teeth did not sound tempting... So I went for a spare Ork Killa Kan buzz-saw instead. It's still got teeth, and is clearly different to a powerfist or lance?
Everything's magnetised so that I can change it's armament for gaming purposes, but this is what it'll have in my Armies on Parade entry.
Next step: the Lancer! This needs to be taller and lankier, to fit it's role as a fast moving scout. And it needs to be armed with a similar las-battlecannon and a cool power lance.
