
MECHANICUM QUESTORIS KNIGHT VIGILANT:
The Legacy of the dying days of the Age of Technology, the first records of the pattern of Knight know as the ‘Vigilant’ also describe the collapse of galactic human society as the Age of Strife began. Called upon to safeguard the fragmenting vestiges of order, the Knight Households unleashed their weapons against their own kind, and many of their war-engines were adapted to augment their anti-personnel capabilities, resulting in the Vigilant chassis. Whilst many of these Knights would continue to defend their subjects through the horrors of Old Night, atrocity seemed to shadow their use throughout history, with many Households using them as terror weapons to ensure their continued dominance against any who would seek to oppose them.
As the Great Crusade continued to unite many Knight worlds under the Mechanicum’s fold, the Knight Vigilant became a vital component of offensives across many fronts, cutting a swathe through the xenos hordes that opposed the Imperium’s dominance, its similarity to many of the most common Knight patterns, and the ready availability of its primary munitions ensuring it continued to serve until the Heresy. During the apocryphal civil war, the worst horrors of the Knight Households’ reigns were relived, as Knights Vigilant in service to the Dark Mechanicum slaughtered loyalist Imperial Army forces with impunity, and ‘pacified’ resistant Imperial populations on worlds claimed by the Warmaster’s forces, the howling screams of their baleful War sirens heralding the deaths of millions of loyalists.

Knight Vigilant: WS: 4 BS: 4 S: 10 Armour: 13/12/12 I: 4 A: 3 HP: 6
Unit Composition:
Unit Type:
- Vehicle (Super Heavy Walker)
Wargear:
- Twin-linked avenger bolt cannon
- Twin-linked heavy flamer
- Augury Matrix
- Ion shield
Special Rules:
- Household Rank
- Death Tempest
- (Super-heavy Walker) Fear, Hammer of Wrath, Invincible Behemoth, Move Through Cover, Relentless, Smash and Strikedown
Options:
- The Knight Vigilant may exchange its twin-linked heavy flamer for:
-Twin-linked Irad cleanser
-Twin-linked Volkite caliver
Augury Matrix:
The Knight Vigilant chassis features an advanced sensory array that enhances its anti-infantry capability, featuring myriad devices that can detect the thermal-signatures, olfactory markers and electromagnetic indicators of almost any organism, amongst a range of more obscure detecting mechanisms. The unit gains the Night Vision and Preferred Enemy (Infantry) special rules. In addition, ranged attacks made by the unit ignore any cover save bonus granted by the Shrouded special rule.
Death Tempest:
In a turn in which the Knight Vigilant does not move, its Avenger Bolt Cannon may be fired with the following type: Heavy 7 + 2D6. However, if it does so, it looses the twin-linked special rule.
Dark Mechanicum:
If taken as part of Dark Mechanicum detachment, the Knight Vigilant gains the following options:
- The Knight Vigilant may exchange its twin-linked heavy flamer for:
-Two mechadendrite flails
- The Knight Vigilant may purchase the following equipment:
-Blood Dirge
Mechadendrite Flail:
Range: - S: 8 AP: 3 Special: Melee, Concussive, Rending, Flail
Flail:
Grants the bearer the Rampage special rule, with the requirement that any additional attacks granted are made with the weapon that possesses the rule.
Blood Dirge:
Based loosely upon the War Sirens featured upon almost every class of Titan, the Blood Dirges were created by the Dark Mechanicum using malign practices unknowable to any without their fold, rendering each shrieking cry produced capable of sending even the most stalwart warrior into fits of maddening terror.
Fear tests taken against the unit suffer a -2 Leadership penalty.
Yeah, this obviously originated when I saw FW's Cerastus Knight with the twin Avengers, and I thought it'd be cool to add to the 'normal' sized Knights. I was inspired a bit by the section in Extermination about the RG survivors on Isstvan V, with the Dark Mechanicum constructs searching the wastes using dark technology to find their quarry. I also really liked the idea of these big, clunky, creepy knights with too many eyes searching through the rubble of a ruined city, searching for survivors. In terms of how it looks, I wanted something that tied in with the whole nobility theme of the households, but could easily become quite sinister in the right context - even the glorious Knight Households have some unpleasant history.
Edit: fixed Blood Dirge & Mechadendrite Flail
Edited by Iron Hands Fanatic, 13 March 2015 - 12:55 AM.