Is the imperial knight companion book worth it?

[BassWave]

In light of the fact that we now have 3 editions worth of codexes, is their enough different information in the companion book that makes it worth picking up? Or is the information within essentially copy and pasted to the codexes?

[Marshal Reinhard]

I'd say it's doubtful. The book is essentially lore and some nice close ups of painted knights, with lore detailing certain knights. Given that the book came out when there were still only the two basic initial knight kits, there's not much picture wise that you shouldn't have already seen.

 

I'd say its a die hard fan book only.

[Stray]

It's a really lovely collectors piece. It's in no way needed, nothing in there will improve your experience vastly playing Knights really. But if you love fluff and can find a copy for a reasonable price, it's certainly got some merit.

 

Little things like, for instance, an explanation of what each of the insignia badges above the Knights head mean (beyond just the Mechanicum cog and Imperial Aquila) and who would wear them and when? It's not fluff you need to know, but it's kinda nice to learn that the one incorporating laurels is worn by Freeblades and why, you know?

 

Pick it up for little things like that, but don't expect much that the codex(s) don't already cover. The companion just digs a tiny bit deeper and adds some lovely images :)

[Sandlemad]

It's nice and I recall the background being better fleshed out in the details than the first codex but the 8th ed. one seems rather better again. The companion not going to give you much more than you already have and still pales in comparison to the background on four heresy-era houses in FW's Conquest.

[Battybattybats]

There's been a lot of lore additions since (like female knights, wardens and gallants, Armigers etc) so there's a lot that's not covered. Not a lot is copy-pasted though. It has some small but inspirational details on cool stuff like: the dragons fought by House Griffith, weird giant plant elementals on another world, that till the crusade some knight worlds had deteriorated till they had black powder canons manned by human crew on wooden scaffolding on their knights, a case of Mechanicus Knight + Skitarii vs a Rogue Techpriest + his own Skitarii + Tyranids he'd managed to control.

 

But these are tidbits in the book, not it's majority. It's mainly example knight scheme's with history for that knight and some extra detail on some houses and freeblades.

 

I'd say worth it for narrative gamers who like to detail the history of their units looking for inspiration, or for those players who like to play established forces and units.

 

I don't regret buying it, but I did buy it when there were just Paladins and Errants with rumours of the Lancer coming from Forgeworld.

[BassWave]

Thanks for the info so far guys. My interest in the book is for any lore not listed in the codex. I'm currently trying to modernize the old school house, Beaumaris, with a friend of mine. So I need as much info as I can get in terms of heraldry use and other details that the codexes are vague on. I don't want to spend a bunch of money on what might be a glorified catalogue.

 

Does it list what each battle honor means? The codexes only cover a few.

 

@Sandlemad- so would you recommend conquest over the companion in regards to knight lore?

[CommodusXIII]

I'd actually recommend the Companion over Conquest for your purposes - there's a good deal of lore on established Households that wasn't copied into the Codices. Both books are great resources, though.