.

I'm more interested to know if anyone is planning on by this weeks White Dwarf, and what fluffs in that.

I bought this weeks' WD, issue 4, if that's what you mean? It's a bit light on background for the Knights. The direction they've gone in seems very close to the original Andy Chambers background from Citadel Journal, back in the day, but details are thin on the ground.

Broadly speaking it appears that there are three types of Knight subfaction: Mechanicus aligned knight worlds/houses, Imperium aligned knight worlds/houses and "freeblades," a mercenary third faction. One imagines that this spread of factions gives virtually any human army the chance to have a knight attached to it: Astartes, Sororitas, Guard, Mechanicus, Inquisition etc etc. Presumably this also includes chaos tainted versions of the knights.

There is, apparently, (according to BoLS) a Codex coming out for the knights, too. I'm looking forward to that. It's due on 8 March, alongside at least 2 other Knight-focussed books.

All this is fantastic as far as I'm concerned. I love the new Knight miniature (even though I can't afford it at the moment) and I've always been very fond of the Knights as a faction. I actually have about a dozen of the original Epic scale Knights, with a broad mix of lancers, Knights, Wardens, Castellans and a Baron...

I bought this weeks' WD, issue 4, if that's what you mean? It's a bit light on background for the Knights. The direction they've gone in seems very close to the original Andy Chambers background from Citadel Journal, back in the day, but details are thin on the ground.

This boggles my mind. What better use for White Dwarf is there than to provide background detail to unusual elements in the 40Kverse? But no, let's skimp on interesting information, in favor of loading the issue up with... what, exactly? Glorified ads and one battle report.

How is it possible that no one at GW has figured out that WD 's decline in sales is the result of it no longer containing any substantive content, and not because of its size ?

See, I almost never say anything negative about GW, because I like the company and I love their products. I find all the endless criticism of their pricing strategies on the inter-webs tedious beyond imagination. I actually think we're living through a golden period for GW at the moment, with good writers and great designers finally having the resources to put into place ideas they've clearly had for years: Horus Heresy era marines! Gigantic high quality plastic army centrepieces! Knights! Beautifully written and produced Forge World books big enough to kill donkeys! Primarchs! I do tend to come across as very Pollyanna-ish in my love for the company, so what I'm going to say now may shock some of you in its pure, brutal rawness:-

I don't really like the new White Dwarf or Warhammer Visions.

There. I said it. I feel SO much better now.

The Warhammer monthly is a coffee table book for a fan base that doesn't have coffee tables, a glossy high production magazine that is clearly designed to sell miniatures already sold more effectively via the excellent 360 degree views on the company's website. I bought the first one to see what it was like, hoping that with a title like "warhammer visions" we'd either see articles about the fictional worlds of both core settings or perhaps a gamer-focused product a bit like Citadel Journal. But no...it's a collection of miniature photographs, and as such pretty boring. Actually VERY boring. And expensive. So I won't be buying it again.

The weekly white dwarf isn't quite so bad; it's pretty much the same magazine that it's been for the past couple of years, just much much smaller and proportionally more expensive. And less convenient, in that if one is inclined to collect every issue, one has to go to a GW store 4 times a month rather than once a month. This was no doubt the plan, but in my case it's backfired because I'm now giving up buying it. Which means I won't go to GW stores any more, I'll just be buying my stuff online.

In online rants about GW, I believe it is traditional at this stage to set out the vast sums of money one has spent over the years on the Company's products, as if this means anything. As I'm ranting (though I can't really summon much enthusiasm for it) for what it's worth, I started collecting the monthly magazine around issue 114, have every one since and most of the ones before, including White Dwarf number 1. Everyone has their favourite era of the magazine, (mine was late 80's) and everyone has different opinions as to why it's not as good as it used to be, just like everything else in this world. (If you've read this far you're probably losing the will to live by now. So am I.)

For my own part I've known for about 5 years that White Dwarf wasn't going to get as good as it was in the 2001-2002 Index Astartes Andy Chambers period again. There were periods when it seemed to rally a bit, but to use a slightly revolting metaphor, the magazine's been wandering stiffly and incontinently around the house stinking, drooling and farting for a long time now, the children don't want to play with it any more, and it spends most of its time just lying in its basket staring at the wall. The decision to turn it into an expensive weekly pamphlet was the jolt I needed to get it down the vet and have it put down, saving myself £120 a year which I can now spend on crack, magic beans and medicinal leeches.

In the grand scheme of things, this is, I recognise, completely meaningless. I still will buy the odd issue if there's something in it which will interest me: I bought issue 4 because it had the new Knights in, and I like Knights. I won't buy issue 5 because it'll just have slightly more Knights in, and there'll be a codex I can get instead.

I'll still buy codices, new miniatures that I like, books that interest me...just no more WD.

Anyway, this is all a bit of a pointless rant. GW aren't going to change their policies because a single internet windbag like me throws a hissy fit. I've always actually rather admired GW's approach to tedious internet criticism, which is just to ignore it completely.

However, it is sad to see White Dwarf, a big, if quiet part of my life, slip into irrelevance. As Adeptus-B says, it was always the substantive content that counted: that dream combination of articles, humour, background, photography, rules and previews. If it's just going to coast along on photography and nothing else then, regretfully, I'm going to have to call it a day. So long White Dwarf.

This is probably just my cynicism towards GW rearing its head again, but I get the feeling they only decided to add them to 40k because Privateer Press added larger units to Warmachine and Hordes back in 2012 - the Colossals and Gargantuans , respectively. The models are about the same size, but I think they're a bit cheaper ($120-$135 US or thereabouts compared to $140 US for the Knights). No customisation options, really, but they're a combination of resin-plastic* pieces and metal ones.

Again, it's probably just my cynicism towards the company; I've no problem with the Knights from a fluff perspective or in the context of an RPG.

I could see them possibly being used either as setpieces as someone else mentioned or maybe a mission objective - maybe escorting the pilots into a staging facility captured by the enemy so that they can get their Knights back, or armoured regiments could act as supporting elements for them as they break through heavy fortifications. That's just off the top of my head, though, and really just stuff I'd like to see in a 40k "spectacle-shooter" like CoD**.

I suppose it would be interesting for the squad to take on one controlled by Chaos/the Dominate. Maybe having to lure it towards more favourable terrain or into an area that friendly artillery emplacements have pre-sighted (practised firing at it until they get the right orientation and elevation to hit it reliably, then write those down for the crew to reference later).

* For those curious - they did this before GW made Finecast and with much greater results; only complaints people had were that the resin-plastic warjacks just didn't have the same heft as the old metal ones. Still sturdy enough for the "warjack-in-a-sock" method of cheating prevention.

** I refuse to consider their single-player campaigns an actual FPS - those are spectacle games like DMC or Asura's Wrath but with much worse writers.

Why do I even wonder that they allows Knights to nearly every faction?

Hell... we are GW... we dont care that these are affiliated with the adeptus mechanicus...

We make some strange things like freeblades and whatever...

Isnt it enough that you can roughly ally every army atm? Do we have to bend the line even more to make everything happen...

We were ****** by the fliers now it seems every army has to get is giant MoFo too...

when it's new, they wan everyone to have it and buy it. It's busted and every army is better with them. A few years from now, the nerf-bat will put them back with the Imperium like they're supposed to be.

I am just a little bit but-hurt about the somewhat "retcon" that might happen here. I have no problem with renegade knights, but for the imperium they should always stay part of the mechanicus for there is no way they could be affiliated with another institution of the imperium as a "mercenary". They might join arms with another army but always under the banner of the mechanicus. And the idea of hiring the for coin is just odd...

Next-time we see a warlord Titan in the service of the tau... because... well... **** the fluff. I mean... how can such a mercenary band even exist if they are absolutely dependent on the forge-worlds? The Ad Mech would go nuts if a knight-world system goes rogue and would deploy a titan legion to get these pesky nobles back in line. This is some holy high-end technology after all and the tech-priests wont accept the loss of such an asset at all. They have done more serious stuff for less.

I think that a major reason for the Knights being able to ally with all armies is that the GW wants to seel as many of those miniatures as possible

And besides, EVERY single organisation in the Imperium (possibly apart for the Grey Knights) has had traitors go to the side of chaos.

The Tau captured some worlds from the Imperium and have had human auxilia ever since and might therefore still have a knight or two.

Orks loot everything they can get their hands on. (According to Black library books, they have succesfully "looted" and Eldar Avatar of Khaine.)

The Tyranids use Genestealers to infiltrate their victims so it is not impossible that one of the pilots of a Knight is a genestealer hybrid. (With that justification the Tyranids can loot everything that isn't a Daemon or Necron.)

It is a bit harder to explain why the Necrons or Dark Eldar would hire a Knight or otherwise obtain their services. Then again the Imperial forces have allied with the Necrons before. The Blood angels didn't even turn against them after their battle against Tyranids and the two forces separated peacefully. (Which is uncommon. One bit of fluff mentions Space Wolfs allying with Eldar for a while but that ended up in an even bigger war after someone got accidentally insulted.) So it is not impossible that Imperial/chaos forces (Actually Chaos renegades might ally with the DE no problem.) ally with another force for the duration of the battle.

So don't complain to me that the Fluff does not seem plausible.

when it's new, they wan everyone to have it and buy it. It's busted and every army is better with them.

I am just a little bit but-hurt about the somewhat "retcon" that might happen here...

Next-time we see a warlord Titan in the service of the tau... because... well... **** the fluff.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the 'Every army gets a ____' movement. It was only mildly irritating when it was Flyers, because air support is a pretty fundamental part of warfare and it makes sense that everyone would have something to fill that roll. But now that we're in the middle of everyone getting a Tau Battlesuit... urgh. The thing that I dislike the most is the fact that we're just supposed to accept that Centurion suits and whatnot have been there all along ; it was just an oversight that they never appeared in any description of any 40K battle before now... double urgh. If they were described as brand-new inventions, it would be slightly easier to accept, but no...

I think that a major reason for the Knights being able to ally with all armies is that the GW wants to seel as many of those miniatures as possible

ofc it is, but that does not make it any better.

As I said before I am okay with chaotic renegade elements, but a Knight in the service of the Tau? Cmon...

It is true that there are auxilia serving... but it is always true that the entire greater good philosophy includes a tiny but rather important thing: The dominance and advancement of the tau science and technology is a fundamental part of their philosophy, also the creed of the fire-caste to fill any higher combat role. The human auxilia is to be wasted. They might get some tau weapons but that is it. The higher echeleons of military service are only available for the tau and with their huge series of walkers they might have some kind of knight equivalent to field.themself.

And yes, orks can loot anything, why not give them any vehicle ever release in a Wh40k codex?

Same goes with the: Genstealer backdoor, sure.

Also I think you know how much love that necron-angel relationship got from the community?

With some effort you can make anything work in the World of WH40k, absolutly. The horrible state of the fluff just makes it even easier. But might I ask you what is left after that? Is it worth to sacrifice the once well written character and theme of each army just to make anything possible? Is that something we can desire? Imho no. Though that is just my opinion.I like the idea of asymmetrical armies, each one with its specific touch.

But the recent policy of GW has drastically changed for the coin and is, in my opinion, quite dangerous to the licencense. But yea. I am an old customer. I am not the new and wealthy target group that happily switches armies or allies what not to bring the most powerful army. When I played it was all about the setting.

Our armies (outside of tournaments) did not require the most absurd or explanation for its organization to make it "work".

But yea... tyranids now field imperial war machines because they... never struggled to fight against them with their own. When a tyranid swarm attacks its biomass is just retrofitted into the troops they need. That is about it.

For sure you could argue "I just use the knight rules to prox a tyranid 'demi-titan'" but would that still fit the tyranid race and gameplay? With that reason we would just need one codex at all.

I simply miss the times where rules were given for models that did not even exist to allow dedicated hobbyists to create them from scratch and artworks. But still most armies had their own variants.

Now it is quite the opposite. There has always to be an official model to release some rules. But they cant release such models for any army, that would be simply to expensive. Instead they just allow any army to have that thing. This is the pinnacle of the new ally-system and it gets even more serious if it includes such game breakers like the fliers.

You can play without them in private matches, but good luck arguing at an offical GW shop, and for some these are the only place to play the hobby.

And the thing about the fliers. Yea... they are a fundamental part of warfare... but as you said... everyone missed their mentioning in some of the most important battles of the 40k lore. And it is not as if they had never been there. There were fliers but the big change was making them so strong that you just had to take them or invest heavily in anti air.

Sometimes you do not feel like fighting an army but an air squadron (IG vendetta or SM Stormraven lists *urg*)

The 40k lore always had its own, quite strange taste, a mix of WW1, napoleonic, medieval, modern and sci fi warfare with its own quirks. You cant argue here like "air support is fundamental because it today is" for the same argument would also translate into "Melee is just absurd for there is no place for it on modern battlefields"

And these are just few of many little, recent changes that about a license i grew up with and really enjoyed so far. So forgive me If I cant accept some strange explanations.^^

The thought of a Knight House, without the direct support of the Mechanicus, is blasphemy! in a galaxy where technology has backslid and very few people could even tell you how a toaster works, the thought of a massive engine of war with thousands, if not millions, of moving parts functioning without their support is more then a suspension of disbelief i'm willing to make.

The thought of a chapter of space marines, without the direct support of the Mechanicus, is blasphemy! in a galaxy where technology has backslid and very few people could even tell you how a toaster works, the thought of a massive fleet and an army of genetically engineered-cyborg-supersoldiers in power armour without their support is more then a suspension of disbelief i'm willing to make.

The thought of Imperial navy, without the direct support of the Mechanicus, is blasphemy! in a galaxy where technology has backslid and very few people could even tell you how a toaster works, the thought of a massive space ship with millions, if not billions, of moving parts functioning without their support is more then a suspension of disbelief i'm willing to make.

Well... The Space marines do have their own techmarines who help build and maintain their equipment but even then they get supplies and assistance from Mechanicus. And the IG and navy get techpriests assigned to them. They are not without Mechanicus support just because it isn't the Mechanicus calling the shots.

And having Mechanicus techpriests assisting mercenaries isn't that odd either. Hereteks will work for anyone and even the regular Techpriests could work for mercenaries. IG and Navy would not hire out their services as mercenaries but the Mechanicus is merely allied with Imperium rather than subservient to it. As long as they aren't directly working against their own interests (or the interests of the Imperium) they can have a reason to work for xeno forces. Maybe they are looking for archeotech or even interesting bits of xeno technology? Maybe they just want the payment for their services and don't care who pays them in materials (xeno currency would be harder to use in the Imperium.)

The thought of a Knight House, without the direct support of the Mechanicus, is blasphemy! in a galaxy where technology has backslid and very few people could even tell you how a toaster works, the thought of a massive engine of war with thousands, if not millions, of moving parts functioning without their support is more then a suspension of disbelief i'm willing to make.

Under the older Canon, many of the Knight worlds were isolated from the wider Imperium (and the Mechanicus) for millenia. The Mechanicus were anxious to cosy up to many of the Knight worlds because they wanted STC technical secrets the Mechanicus themselves didn't possess.

It seems to me that neither the newer canon nor the older canon preclude a scenario where a knight world has been isolated from the Mechanicus for a very long time.

Although I've been a bit negative about White Dwarf and Warhammer Visions on this thread (because they're not very good), I genuinely don't get all the negativity about the knights. I think the miniatures are excellent, and I'm really enthused about the forthcoming Codex Knights, arguably the first genuinely new 40K faction (as opposed to subfaction) since the Tau.

I personally think that a faction capable of allying with just about anyone is pretty exciting, and can slot into the canon rather well. After all, WH40k was originally designed to enable pretty much any army to fight pretty much any other army; events like the Badab War and the Horus Heresy enabled players armed with identical armies to fight each other within a coherent historical narrative.

The "Freeblades" concept is, in my view pretty fun, too. The 40k universe in my view benefits from a truly independent official mercenary faction willing to fight on behalf of pretty much any other faction in exchange for cash.

I've just seen on BoLs rumours to the effect that:-

• No Knight can ally with Chaos
• There are going to be Forge World add-ons to the Knights
• The forthcoming Codex appears to be based solely on the existing knight miniature, ie no mention of lancers, wardens etc

Obviously, rumours only...but I'm not quite so happy about some of these. It seems to me to stand to reason that there are going to be chaos-tainted knight worlds. I know Chaos players have the Lord of Battles, but that's a Daemon engine, a very different thing to a chaos corrupted knight. If Titans can be corrupted, why can't Knights? Imagine a converted chaos knight - that would be very cool.

Forge world add ons are good...but I wonder if the new Codex will contain rules for them? GW rarely these days release rules without accompanying miniatures after the Chapterhouse judgement, but the current absence of any Forge World add-ons available now are a bit worrying. It would seem a missed opportunity to have a full new faction codex that doesn't contain rules for any alternate weapon fits FW might come up with...

The main thing to keep in mind for the whole Ally System in the 40k Table Top is this:

Do you plan on playing a fluffy army that looks coherent?

Or do you wanna win?

My play group plays for fluff and because the game looks awesome when every army is painted and fighting on a good painted terrain with buildings and stuff, my tyranid and necron players would not even dream of taking a knight because it does not fit

on the other hand my chaos player will because we dont give a **** if the codex states otherwise, on the condition that he adequatly chaosifies it of course

of course tournament players or people needy of wins always find ways to break the system or abuse a rule

just keep the distinction in mind and most problems will solve themselves

I think you're playing the game the way it should be played, Nightcloak! I agree that Knight/Tyranid and Knight/Necron forces make little sense in the context of the setting, but I too would be happy to play against an appropriately painted chaotic knight.