"Magdalena" Apostle-Class Knight-Titan pt II: Rules

I'd decided to build a Knight-Titan for my Sisters of Battle army not only before 8th edition was released, but before it was announced. If I had given any thought to gaming with it, I would have fielded it as an allied Knight (as pretty much any Imperial army could do in 7th) using the old workhorse of "count as". Magdalena (a piece of background which I feel is relevant; no-one calls her "Maggie" twice within earshot of a member of the Order . . .) is armed with a power fist and melta weapon; there would be some similar configuration I could field.

In 8th edition, of course, the same could be done - the Knight Errant has a thermal cannon and can upgrade its reaper chainsword for a thunderstrike gauntlet. The Errant's heavy stubber would have to stand in for the anti-infantry torso guns and the heavy flamers on the back of the power fist would just have to be cosmetic and have no in-game effect.

But the unique army construction method of 8th edition gives a different option. The datasheets detail the weapons a model may be armed with and appendices give the costs for those weapons and the basic model in points. It is, theoretically, possible to arm any model in an army with any weapon available to that army (or even any weapon at all) by simply adding up the points.

Of course, some common sense has to be (or maybe should be) applied - vehicle-only weapons shouldn't go on infantry, for example, and the number of weapons should be reasonable. One should also only use weapons from a different Faction whose costs are comparable to those in your Faction (one element of the cost of a weapon is the BS or WS of the model using it). And, naturally, any unique entries so created can only be used in friendly games and with your opponent's permission.

But with all that, it was very easy to come up with the rules and points values for Magdalena. Each of the five Knight classes has an identical profile and special rules - the only difference is in the weapon loadout - and each model has the same points cost (320) in the appendix. A basic Knight "chassis", therefore, has no weapons, the Knight Abilities, and costs 320 points.

Magdalena's weapons loadout is obvious just by looking at her; she has a thunderstrike gauntlet, a thermal cannon, titanic feet, twin heavy flamers on the back of the fist, and torso-mounted anti-infantry guns (which look like overscaled hurricane bolters). The first three weapons are easy to select from the Questor Imperialis appendix - 35pts, 76pts and 0pts respectively. The other two are a little trickier, because they are not standard Knight weapons (and it isn't entirely clear what the torso guns actually are).

I could choose two heavy flamers from the Knight appendix at 17 points each. That would be perfectly WYSIWYG and from the same Faction. But Magdalena is a Sororitas Knight - the background is not that she is seconded or oathsworn to the Sisters, but that she is actually part of their armory. Two heavy flamers are also two separate weapons, capable of firing at two different units under 8th ed rules - that didn't seem entirely reasonable given the weapons' placement.

Instead, I chose to go with an immolation flamer (35pts) from the Sororitas appendix. This is a uniquely Sisters' weapon (not just a twin-linked heavy flamer) and so seemed in character. I reasoned it was fair to use the Sisters' appendix for the points values because Knights and Sisters have the same BS (3+) and so weapons are equally effective. It was also the case that the weapons which appeared in both appendices - heavy flamer and meltagun - were the same points values, suggesting parity.

For the torso guns, I considered using hurricane bolters - that is, after all, what their appearance is inspired by. But that would have meant drawing from a different Faction (Space Marines) and I didn't want to do that. I could have counted them as heavy stubbers but that didn't seem quite right (it is not one of the "holy trinity"). Instead, I reasoned they were basically multi-barreled heavy bolters synchronized to fire together - twin-linked heavy bolters at 17 points.

So, Magdalena points out as follows:

Basic Knight chassis: 320pts
Thunderstrike gauntlet: 35pts
Thermal cannon: 76pts
Titanic feet: 0pts
Immolation flamer: 35pts
Twin heavy bolter: 17pts
TOTAL: 483pts

To calculate Power Rating requires a bit more math, and a degree of fudging. Firstly, I calculated the points cost of each of the five classes of Knight in the Index (basic weapon loadout, no carapace weapon) and compared it to the Power Rating, getting a pts : PR ratio;

Errant: 430pts / 23PR = 18.7 ratio
Paladin: 458pts / 24PR = 19.08 ratio
Warden: 466pts / 25PR = 18.64 ratio
Gallant: 389pts / 21PR = 18.52 ratio
Crusader: 512pts / 27PR = 18.96 ratio
(all ratios rounded to two decimal places)

I then averaged the ratios (getting 18.78) and divided Magdalena's points value by that to get a Power Rating of 25.71. That rounds up to 26, of course, so her pts:PR ratio is 18.58. This gives her the second "worse" ratio (after the Gallant) but the actual variation is minor (a 26PR Knight at the "best" ratio would be 496pts, only 13 points more than she is).

In terms of Keywords, it would be an unfair advantage to change them - the Faction Keywords remain IMPERIUM, QUESTOR IMPERIALIS and <HOUSEHOLD>. The chosen household is, of course, CRYSTAL LADY but there is no synergy between my Sisters' <ORDER> Faction Keyword. My army will be unified by the IMPERIUM Faction Keyword. The non-Faction Keywords of TITANIC and VEHICLE remain, with the individual class of Knight being replaced with KNIGHT APOSTLE.

So that was how I went about using the material in the Indices to create a unique entry for my army. Again, such things are only intended for fun games and with your opponent's permission. But I hope this exercise has not only shown you how I did it, but also encouraged you to consider doing similar things. In 8th edition, we might be seeing a return to the glory days of vehicle design rules and other imaginative, freeform unit creation and army selection!

Let me know what you think!

=][= Danforth Laertes

"Magdalena" Apostle-Class Knight-Titan pt I: Assembly

Although the Sisters of Battle do not have Knights as part of their army list, an allied Knight-Titan is a popular choice. My recent return to painting 40K models after a long hiatus was inspired by the Dreamforge Leviathan Crusader and thinking it would make a great Sisters of Battle Knight-Titan.

The kit has a number of swappable weapons - it comes with a rotary cannon and a large sword. I didn't want those, and so purchased the Mauler Claw (basically a power fist) and the Nova Cannon (which looks very much like a huge melta weapon).

As you can see in this video and those that follow, the Leviathan kit has almost limitless poseabilty (and even comes with little weeny screws!) and can be assembled with swappable weapons and points of articulation. I did not want to do that - I always consider wargaming miniatures to be models, not toys, and such things can easily break. But I also wanted to customize the model significantly, and that would interfere with articulation.

This is the initially assembly. The major change I made was to leave the carapace plate off the top of the torso and replace it with the cap from a fruit-juice bottle (the orange component). I also cut a section out of the chest plate, allowing it to be moved flatter against the torso. This allowed me to move the head (cut down and with a curved rear made from a plumbing piece) from being sunk between the shoulders and instead mount it where a human's head would be, using the bottle-cap as a gorget.

The next images I have jump quite a bit ahead in the process. The weapons have been assembled and attached and I started building the backpack (from spare vehicle armor plates). In these pictures, the armor plates are just taped in place to see what they look like. The tubes leading from the "arc reactor" in the chest (and the backpack pipes) are Lego components. The power fist has been assembled pointing in a meaningful manner - the "Mauler Claw" has virtually all the articulation of a human hand, so this was very easy to do. As the articulating components were all plastic, I fused all the joints with some thin polycement drawn into the gaps by capillary action, and a couple of strategic pins superglued in place.

Maxmini Gothic Backpacks

The inspiration for the backpack came from the Maxmini Gothic Backpacks rather than the Sisters of Battle armor (although I was drawing on that for other armor elements). These are a popular third-party component for Sisters, although perhaps a little overscaled for Sisters' infantry. I kitbashed the original components to make the new exhaust stacks.

She is based on an old terrain piece I had kicking about in my bitz box - the Aquila lander from "Battle for Macragge". I filled the underside with resin and drilled holes for multiple pins.

A brief discussion of what I am trying to achieve seems apropos. While Knight-Titans in 40K have a very distinctive look - quasi-humanoid "beetle-backed" forms with their heads slung between their shoulders, often with structures rising above them - I wanted Magdalena to look different. Specifically, I wanted her to look as much like a Sister of Battle as possible. This is why I moved the head inside a gorget on top of the shoulders. In addition to adding the backpack, I modified the chest - moving it backwards to close-up the over-large void left by removal of the head, but also adding in pipes leading from a central circular detail (rather than a skull icon, I created something that looks a little like an Iron Man "arc reactor"!) I also placed curved armor plates within the void, intended to suggest cleavage revealed by a low-cut neckline (as I have mentioned before, the hyper-femininity of the Sisters' armor is not only justified by essential).

A couple of images which I drew heavily on for various details are reproduced here.

"The Sister of Battle"  by LordHannu

"Sisters of Battle Katrina" by Haxiaowei

Both of these are fan-art pieces, and so differ from the classic Sisters armor - but they each had elements I really liked. The curved hip armor of the upper image was attractive (and worked well with the armor of the Leviathan, which left the hip joint vulnerable). The fleur-de-lis over the belly and the large fleurs on the thigh plates (as well as the sculpted elements on other plates) we something I wanted to reproduce too.

The above images show the next stage of design - and debate about what I was going to do. Initially, I was considering something rising from the center of the backpack (hence the mounting point) but that did not work with the vents. The mounting point was later removed. Similarly, you can see the debate about what weapons she should have mounted in her chest. The heavy-bolters were too large. The missile launchers seemed more visually appropriate. In the end, I used some plastic tube to scratch-build hurricane bolters inspired by Centurions.

The curved hip armor was built by cutting three identical pieces of thin plasticard (from a paper template) and then laminating them together with plastic cement, holding them in a jig to preserve the curve while they dried. I've used this method before, and it works very well indeed. They were simply then glued in place.

Here is the final assembly with base-coats on (the base has been pretty much painted in a dull red with weathering, while she is simply sprayed silver). A lot of components - her head and all the armor - are left off for painting (and, in fact, many of them aren't even finished). You can see where the mounting point on the rear of the backpack has been removed and replaced with a simple "fence"-style ram from the Sisters of Battle sprue.

Painting has got a bit further than this (although not much!) and so there will be further posts. But, for now, let me know what you think!

=][= Danforth Laertes