The Cerastus Knight Lancer goes up for pre-order today as the newest knight reinforcements for either 40k or Horus Heresy, though the box is branded for Heresy. I’d like to thank Games Workshop for sending over a free preview copy of the knight for me to build and paint.
This is the first of the cerastus knights to transition from resin to plastic. The rules for cerastus knights can be found in the Forge World indexes, but broadly speaking they’re just taller knights, towering a little bit over even a Dominus-class knight.
If you’ve ever built a knight before, the body goes together pretty much exactly the same as all the older ones, but the legs are substantially different – they’re actually posable. Each leg is built up of feet (with posable toes), upper and lower legs, and a pelvis, so you can pose it however you want (and as it’s plastic you aren’t worried about superglue joints shattering in more extreme poses). All of the joints have a tab that you clip off to let them rotate, so if you just want to get it built you don’t have to fuss with the pose.
The spear and shield can each be attached to either arm, and the spear positioned anywhere along its back/forward movement, so poses can be quite dynamic. I’ve built mine to be blocking with the shield while being about mid-stab, which I think will look great on the table.
When it comes to painting, nearly everything can be painted without needing to mask. There are a few sections of armor plating on the arms, the head, and the toes are the only mixed armor/chassis, every other piece including kneepads is separate, so it paints up nice and quick.
